New Delhi: Foreign Secrateries of India and Pakistan - Nirupama Rao and Salman Bashir - had useful and frank dialogue. They agreed for need for constructive dialogue and need to carry forward dialogue process. They will brief their respective Governments on their discussions.
Setting a positive tone ahead of their meeting in Thimphu, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir earlier on Sunday said they would endeavour to find a way forward for continued engagement between the two countries.
"We are resuming our contact after interregnum of some time. We have a number of issues to be discussed. As we have always said that dialogue between India and Pakistan is necessary and a must if we are to satisfactorily resolve the outstanding issues between our two countries," she said. "We have a number of outstanding issues. So, we are going into this with an open mind and constructive attitude," Rao said.
Noting that her Pakistani counterpart would also have a "number of ideas" to discuss, Rao said, "so, this is going to be exploratory discussion and we hope that through this process, we can find a way forward."
Earlier, Bashir separately said he was looking forward to his meeting with Rao. "My expectations are that we should be working towards continued engagement," he said. Rao and Bashir, who are here to attend the SAARC Foreign Secretaries' meeting, will hold talks on its sidelines later on Sunday.
India has already rubbished Basit's contention that the pace of investigation into Samjhauta Express blast was slow and said the case could not be compared to Mumbai attacks in terms of gravity and evidence available.
New Delhi pointed out that in the Mumbai attack case, the leads were very clear despite which Pakistan has failed to act satisfactorily. He said the two Foreign Secretaries would be preparing for engagement between their Foreign Ministers.
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