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Agencies
SHARM EL-SHEIKH (Egypt): India on Wednesday appeared to be seeing signs of thaw in relationship with Pakistan countries meet here on Thursday to review progress on Islamabad's actions to punish the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Foreign Secretaries of the two countries today discussed a whole range of issues including the detention and release of Jamaat-ud Dawah chief Mohammed Hafeez Saeed, believed to be the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks.
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir talked of a "tall order" after his 90-minute meeting with his counterpart Shivshankar Menon in the small hours of the day, shortly after the Indian official landed from Paris.
"We want to have a broad-based engagement. We want to turn the corner in our relationship. We have agreed to continue our conversation. There is a tall order. It is uphill. Pakistan is prepared," Bashir said on his meeting with Menon in which they discussed all bilateral issues.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani tomorrow morning in which Pakistan's actions on its commitment to bring to justice the perpetrators of the November terror attacks will be discussed.
Sounding positive on the Indo-Pak engagement in this sea resort town, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said "Well, I think there is less acrimony now. Even the statement made by Pakistan in the ministerial conference was a mild one and perhaps it might be the harbinger of the kind of relationship between the two countries which is in mutual interest."
On Bashir's stand that talks between the two countries should not not be held hostage to one or the other issue like Saeed, Krishna said Pakistan did make an attempt to go at Saeed but the court released him.
"Wisdom would have dictated that they should have appealed in a higher court of law. But let us wait for the unfolding of the events further," he said adding one would have to await the outcome of the crucial meeting of the prime ministers.
Singh-Gilani meeting is a following of the discussions the prime minister had with President Asif Ali Zardari in Yekaterinberg in Russia last month when a stern message was given to Pakistan that it will have to stop terror emanating from its soil directed against India.
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