ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz and Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid agreed on Friday to a meeting of prime ministers of the two countries in New York later this month.
The two sides also agreed to respect the Line of Control ceasefire accord.
Mr Aziz and Mr Khurshid met in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
A statement issued by the Foreign Office quoted Mr Aziz as saying about the New York meeting: “We agreed to use diplomatic channels to finalise the agenda for such a meeting keeping in view the progress made so far in various working groups and in backchannel contacts.”
Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Dr Manmohan Singh are likely to meet on Sept 29 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York. The date was proposed by Pakistan.
The prospects of a meeting between the two leaders had become dim last month after the Aug 6 ambush on an Indian military patrol and subsequent shelling of Pakistani posts on LoC and civilian population by the Indian army. But with the two sides now agreeing to the meeting, it appears they have decided to put the unfortunate events of August behind them.
Sartaj Aziz regretted that the momentum in bilateral relationship created by the two prime ministers through their exchanges after the May 11 elections in Pakistan had been lost because of the Aug 6 incident in which five Indian soldiers were killed. India had blamed the incident on the Pakistan army which strongly denied the allegation. It remains unclear as to who perpetrated the attack that temporarily de-tracked the accident-prone ties.
Mr Aziz reminded the Indian foreign minister about the need for insulating Pakistan-India ties from external factors. “The objective of establishing durable peace in South Asia is of such paramount importance that it should not be held hostage to electoral politics or the process allowed to be derailed by a single incident,” he said.
Importantly, the two sides also agreed to fully respect the 2003 LoC ceasefire accord. They decided to optimally utilise the mechanism of weekly conversation between directors general military operations of the two countries and the joint working group on cross-LoC CBMs.
MUMBAI ATTACK: Mr Aziz, according to an Indian source, updated Mr Khurshid on the progress his government was making in the trial of the Mumbai attacks accused. He said the government had appointed a new prosecutor and a Pakistani judicial commission would visit India on Sept 23 for cross-examining key Indian witnesses in the case. “And we genuinely, honestly hope that now things can proceed faster and that we would see through court proceedings something substantive happening,” Indian minister Khurshid said about developments in the Mumbai case.
