General reminds him of invite to talk J&K, PM in no hurry, underlines terror

Reminding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of his earlier invite, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has conveyed through his Foreign Secretar...

Reminding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of his earlier invite, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has conveyed through his Foreign Secretary that the time had come for the two leaders to meet and discuss the Kashmir issue.

While accepting the invite, Singh told Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan that he would first like to ensure that the visit is a substantive one. The PM also raised the issue of terror with Khan and drew his attention to the attacks in Delhi and Bangalore. He reminded the Pakistan Foreign Secretary that it was important to ensure that Pakistan abides by its commitment not to allow its territory to be used for terrorism directed against India.

This issue was discussed at length by the two Foreign Secretaries with India highlighting the existence of camps and infrastructure of terrorism on the Pakistan side. The Pakistani delegation said there were international forces operating from Pakistan these days and they had not noticed any camps.

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In this context, the two sides also agreed to arrange for discussions between the Pakistani Federal Investigative Agency and the CBI.

On the demilitarization issue, India said: “There should be a significant improvement in the security situation. What we are telling Pakistan is that why should we limit ourselves to just three places on the LoC. There should be peace and tranquility all along the LoC and the international border so that troops don’t have to be posted there.”

The same logic was extended to the Pakistani proposal for not allowing strike formations to be moved permanently to forward positions. On the second proposal for an ABM free zone in South Asia, Saran said it was premature to make such a suggestion.

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