Press Briefing by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon on the conclusion of Foreign Secretary level talks between India and Pakistan
Navtej Sarna: Good afternoon. It gives me great pleasure to welcome the Foreign Secretary here. He is accompanied by High Commissioner Mr.Satyabrata Pal from Islamabad. The Foreign Secretary will brief you on the India-Pakistan talks. I must tell you that the Foreign Secretary has to leave for the airport straight after this. So, please keep your questions short and few.
Shivshankar Menon: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. As you know, we have just been through two days of talks with the Pakistani Foreign Secretary. I believe he has just finished briefing you on the talks. You also have with you the Joint Press Statement which we issued at the end of the talks, which gives you an idea of the various decisions that we took. I thought what I'd do was briefly mention the context in which these decisions were taken. Then I will be happy to answer your questions on this.
As you know, these were the first round of official talks between the Foreign Secretaries after we postponed the July talks. They were postponed because of the Mumbai blasts, and because the links into Pakistan of those blasts had created a very strong sense of public opinion and a very strong opinion that we could not have held the talks at that time.
Subsequent to that, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with President Musharraf in Havana and it was decided that we would resume these conversations. In that sense this is an important round, a significant round, different from other rounds which were merely meant to review the progress in the Composite Dialogue that we have with Pakistan.
I am happy to tell you that we had a very useful and a constructive round where we not only addressed the various issues which we had been asked to address by the two leaders in the Joint Statement issued in Havana, but we also reviewed the third round of the Composite Dialogue and then discussed the way forward, the sort of actions that we can take and we should take to move this process forward.
Since this was the first formal meeting after the Mumbai blasts, as you have seen from the Joint Press Statement, we discussed and then agreed how to establish the anti-terror mechanism which our leaders had mandated in Havana. It is to be composed of three people from each side and would be headed by an Additional Secretary from the Foreign Ministry. We also discussed its task, which is to consider counter-terrorism measures including through the regular and timely sharing of information.
We shared some information at this round itself with Pakistan on some of the terrorist acts which we have suffered from in the recent past where we have already done our investigations and filed charge-sheets. We also reviewed the third round which had taken place in the earlier part of the year and which you would recall had made progress in several respects.
This was the round which saw the opening of the Poonch-Rawalakot bus service. It was also the round which saw the agreement in principle on cross-LoC trade which has not still been implemented. It was the round which also saw the agreement on a revised shipping protocol which would make it easier to carry cargo between the two countries. This was the round which also discussed the nuclear risk reduction agreement which, as you know, is now ready.
We also agreed in principle on quarterly flag meetings. Apart from that, we then looked at the way forward at how we could take the dialogue process forward and the relationship forward. Most of the results of what we have said are in the Joint Press Statement. So, I would not go over that again.
What we envisage is the fourth round of the Composite Dialogue next year, which we will start off when the two Foreign Secretaries meet in Islamabad in February. Thereafter we will try and make progress on the various issues which are in the agenda. They are listed in the first paragraph of the Joint Press Statement.
Our goal in this process of talks, negotiations, contacts, visits, is frankly to try and achieve a relationship with Pakistan, who is our neighbour, which could be described not just as normalized but actually as good neighbourly relations. We are a long way from this. We obviously have many many things to do in order to achieve that, but that is our goal through this process. It is a fact of geography that we are neighbours and our destinies are linked and we will keep working at this and try and improve the relationship.
I would be happy to answer any questions you have.
Question: The Pakistani Foreign Secretary has just told us that India has not presented … evidence on the Mumbai blasts nor have you in any way given any information or had any discussion on the Mumbai blasts. Can you say anything on this?