NEW DELHI, Jan 12: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said on Friday that tough bargaining on `trickier bilateral issues’ was the only certainty in the talks his Indian counterpart would hold in Islamabad.
Indian officials have been sending out signals through their media to the effect that Pakistan may be preparing to agree to an endorsement of the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in Siachen. If so, it remained unclear whether New Delhi would keep its part of the bargain by not seeing such an endorsement as proof of its rights on the glacier.
According to the Indian brief to the media, terrorism would remain a key issue in the bilateral talks. Mr Kasuri declined to take a narrow view of this particular emphasis in the talks, but suggested that more thorough work was needed for the success of an anti-terror joint mechanism they have agreed to put in place.
"There has been a spate of confidence-building measures in the past, but that is not followed up by conflict resolution," Mr Kasuri complained.
"I hope that the (Indian) prime minister's proposal on peace and treaty materialises, but he knows more than anybody else that all the conflicts must be resolved before that. I am sure that he is mindful of that fact.
“I would like to believe that the prime minister is aware of the various levels of talks in process between the two countries and has made the statement keeping that in mind. If that’s the case, his statement is welcome, but I would like to repeat that we must resolve all issues, particularly Jammu and Kashmir.”
