February 18, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 29, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 17: Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri would be leading a 17-member official delegation at the Pakistan-India Joint Commission meeting to be held in New Delhi on Feb 21, diplomatic sources told Dawn on Saturday.

He will leave for New Delhi on Tuesday afternoon aboard a special aircraft.

The delegation will comprise senior officials of the foreign ministry, including Additional Secretary (UN) Tariq Osman Hyder, Director-General of South Asia Division Jalil Abbas Jilani, Director-General (UN) and spokesperson Tasnim Aslam, Director-General of Foreign Minister’s Office Khalid Mahmud and Director (India) Irfan Ahmed.

Joint secretaries of eight other relevant ministries will also be part of the team as would be Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Mr Shahid Malik.

The one-day session of the revived Joint Commission with the agenda of promoting bilateral cooperation in diverse areas will be co-chaired by Mr Kasuri and Indian External Affairs Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee.

Mr Mukherjee had extended an invitation for the Joint Commission meeting to Mr Kasuri during his visit here last month. This will be their third meeting since November 2006 when they first met in New Delhi during Mr Kasuri’s private visit to India.

The venue will be Indian capital’s historic Hyderabad House where the two foreign ministers also had their first meeting.

An important aspect of Mr Kasuri’s three-day visit to the Indian capital will be his meeting with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Thursday. A call-on with President A.P.J Abdul Kalam and a meeting with the ruling Congress party President Mrs Sonia Gandhi are also on the cards. During his talks with the top Indian leadership Mr Kasuri would specifically raise the issues of Kashmir, Siachen as well as Sir Creek and underscore the need for their early settlement, officials here said.

Mr. Kasuri would also have an interaction with the APHC leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani to have further discussions on specific proposals that could lead to a settlement of the Kashmir issue.

The Joint Commission (JC) sitting will be preceded by meetings of two sub-commissions on information and education on Feb 20, as these are the only two of the eight working groups that have not met so far.

Pakistan and India established the Joint Commission in March 1983 with the aim of providing beneficial cooperation in various fields but it had been dormant since 1989. Only three meetings of the Commission were held between 1983 and 1989.

However, during President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s visit to India in April 2005, it was decided to reactivate the Joint Commission.

The plenary session of the commission was held on Oct 4, 2005 in Islamabad and it was decided to restructure the four existing sub-commissions of JC into eight technical level working groups on agriculture, health, science & technology, information, education, IT & telecommunications, environment and tourism.