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| Indo-Pak talks on Siachen begin on April 6 | | | NEW DELHI, MAR 23
A two-day talks between the Defence Secretaries of India and Pakistan on the Siachen glacier dispute will take place in Rawalpindi early next month. New Delhi and Islamabad have agreed to hold the talks from April 6.
The Defence Secretaries of the two countries will be assisted during the talks by their Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMOs). The two-day meeting will also be atended by officials of the Foreign Ministries of India and Pakistan and other "relevant" departments.
The last meeting on the Siachen glacier issue was held in May 2006. The meeting next month assumes special significance as it would signal whether the two sides succeed in breaking ice on the issue that could pave the way for the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Pakistan.
Some reports just circulated in Islamabad say that the forthcoming talks between the Defence Secretaries of the two cousntries would focus on the proposals for the settlement of the conflict recently exchanged by the two sides, and on narrowing differences. Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, had disclosed at a press conference on Jan 13 that “a lot of work had already been done” on the Siachen issue and stated that given the political will it could be resolved "within days".
He said that his Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan, during the talks in New Delhi in November 2006, had handed over a ‘detailed plan’ in this regard to his Indian counterpart. Kasuri asserted that the ‘package’ addressed concerns of both the sides.
The Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, last week acknowledged that the two countries had been looking at ‘a common set of ideas’ which both sides had brought to the table. He declared: “We are hopeful.” Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan has said that “2007 is a critical year that can prove to be the watershed.” Pakistan has been pushing for an agreement on disengagement and redeployment, demilitarisation, monitoring and verification mechanisms.
However, India has been insisting on authentication of the existing positions of troops, which Pakistan opposes as it believes this would amount to endorsing the Indian "aggression". |
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