‘Modi-Sharif talks reopened back channel’

The daily said that Jilani expressed the hope that back-channel talks would enable the two sides to discuss all issues, including terrorism and Islamabad’s concerns regarding Indian involvement in stoking unrest in Balochistan.

Jilani told a US think tank in Washington on Tuesday that Pakistan desired an uninterrupted peace process with India that would address causes of all outstanding disputes and “not just symptoms”. ( Source: PTI )

India and Pakistan have revived back-channel talks following a meeting between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif last month, the Pakistani daily Dawn reported on Wednesday, quoting Islamabad’s ambassador to Washington, Jalil Abbas Jilani.

The daily said that Jilani expressed the hope that back-channel talks would enable the two sides to discuss all issues, including terrorism and Islamabad’s concerns regarding Indian involvement in stoking unrest in Balochistan.

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“There have been proposals to develop a serious mechanism on terrorism,” Dawn quoted Jilani as having said. The revival of the peace process would be “a first step towards creating a cooperative and tension-free relationship between the two countries”.

Jilani, who was Pakistan’s foreign secretary when Sharif met then prime minister Manmohan Singh in New York in September 2013, said the Pakistani delegation had returned from those talks with the impression that “it was taken positively by the Indian side. It remains on the table and when the dialogue process starts, we will revisit the same proposal”.

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