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| Talks may take off on Feb 18 | | | Agencies
New Delhi, Feb 7: Days after India proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan, sources said on Sunday the talks could take place either on February 18 or 25 in New Delhi.
The government is expected to call an all-party meet before holding the talks to take every political spectrum into confidence.
While terrorism is going to be the major focus of the talks, humanitarian and consular issues, trade and confidence building measures will also be discussed.
India is basically looking at an incremental dialogue with Pakistan and wants to discuss all issues of peace and stability with its neighbour, government sources said.
They added that while aiming to enhance trust and confidence with Pakistan, New Delhi wants to Islamabad to do more against terror.
If sources are to be believed, India is also willing to discuss the controversial issue of Balochistan with Pakistan. Islamabad accuses India of sponsoring terror in its troubled province.
India’s formal proposal to Pakistan to hold talks between Foreign Secretaries is the first definitive departure from the post Mumbai terror attack period when New Delhi suspended the composite dialogue with Islamabad, blaming it for the November 2008 mayhem that left 166 people dead.
But even as Islamabad prepared to receive later this month Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram, its Foreign Office talked tough that nothing short of a restart of the composite dialogue process would satisfy it.
"We want result-oriented and sustained dialogue and no format of engagement other than composite dialogue will be acceptable to us," Foreign Office spokesperson Abdul Basit told the Dawn newspaper.
Basit said Pakistan would not be interested in "talks for the sake of talks".
If the talks materialize, it will be the first meeting between Foreign Secretaries Nirupama Rao of India and Salman Bashir of Pakistan since they met in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September last year.
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