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| 18 May 2004 | Tuesday | 27 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Pakistan team to visit India for N-talks
ISLAMABAD, May 17: Pakistan will send a seven-member delegation for expert-level talks with India on nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs) next week and it has already informed New Delhi about it through diplomatic channels
, Dawn learnt through informed sources.
Pakistan's High Commissioner in New Delhi Mr Aziz Ahmed Khan communicated the size and composition of the Pakistani delegation to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs last week, soon after Indian election results, the sources said on Monday.
The delegation, to be headed by the Foreign Ministry's Additional Secretary for UN Mr Tariq Osman Haider, will include five officials from the Foreign Ministry and two from the Strategic Plans Division (SPD).
Foreign Ministry's Director General for South Asia Jalil Abbas Jilani, who led the talks with the Indian joint secretary Arun Singh in February to work out a framework for future dialogue, is part of the delegation.
Other Foreign Ministry officials include Director Disarmament Shuja Alam, Director India, Tariq Zamir, and Assistant Director Disarmament Brig. Naeem Salik and Group Captain Khalid Banuri are the two experts from the SPD's Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs Wing.
Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan underlined the importance of the upcoming nuclear talks at his weekly news briefing here on Monday. He said from the Pakistan side all preparations were complete and its delegation would leave for New Delhi on May 24, a day before the two-day talks begin.
The spokesman said the general framework of the talks would include strategic stability, crisis management, confidence-building and risk reduction. Significantly, these will be the first senior official-level contact between the two countries after the change of government in New Delhi following the 14th Lok Sabha elections.
Experts from both sides will submit a report to their respective foreign secretaries after their consultation on nuclear CBMs as a precursor to the secretary-level talks on peace and security as well as Jammu and Kashmir in June.
Meanwhile, Pakistani officials here maintained there was no indication from New Delhi of a delay in talks. After the Congress victory in the elections last week there have been positive pronouncements from its leaders indicating that it will press ahead with the peace talks.
The talks on nuclear CBMs are expected to be a reiteration of the MoU signed between the two countries during PM Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Lahore in Feb 1999. The MoU covered both nuclear and missile regimes including advanced notification of ballistic missile testing.
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