NEW DELHI, Sept 19: The Indian foreign minister will be in Islamabad on Oct 3 for a three-day visit to review with his Pakistan counterpart the outcome of the second round of their composite dialogue, official sources said on Monday.
They told Dawn Mr K. Natwar Singh and Mr Kurshid Mehmood Kasuri would also nudge the revival of an India-Pakistan Joint Commission, as mandated by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in their meeting here in April.
The sources said there were indications that the Indian prime minister would visit Pakistan in December, or early January, possibly on board the Munabao-Khokhrapar train expected to start by then.
Before that, he will have had an important unilateral meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on the margins of the Saarc summit in Dhaka in November. Dr Singh has never visited Pakistan since 1947.
In an interview to India’s NDTV news channel in New York, the Indian foreign minister conveyed the impression that despite some adverse signals seen in the closed doors in the meeting between Dr Singh and Gen Musharraf, “the Indian government has clearly decided to send out a message that the talks are back on track.”
Speaking to NDTV, Mr Singh said he had had another meeting with Mr Kasuri and said, according to the news channel, “that the general has made amends for his remarks on Kashmir at the UN.”
“The dialogue process (with Pakistan) is on track,” Mr Singh said. He also denied that the Indian Prime Minister’s Office and the Indian foreign ministry had differences over the talks. He called such reports a figment of the media’s imagination.
In the context of US reservations on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, Mr Singh said India had no reason to be apologetic about its relationship with Iran.
The remarks came hours before his meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“The US is aware of our relationship with Iran. We don’t need to be apologetic for it,” he said. “We will tell the US that diplomacy must be given a chance in Iran,” he added.
On the Sarabjit Singh issue, the Indian foreign minister said he was hopeful that the alleged Indian spy would not be hanged.
“It is my belief that Sarabjit will not be hanged.” It is the first such official confirmation after the Indian prime minister’s meeting with Gen Musharraf.
