ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Minister, Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, has questioned the wisdom of a meeting between India and Pakistan, “at any level”, in the absence of a clearer indication of the Government of India’s attitude concerning negotiations on Kashmir [June 24].

Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, in a letter dated June 16 sent to the Indian Foreign Minister in response to his letter of May 6, has pointed out to Mr Chagla in this connection a recent statement of Mrs Indira Gandhi in which she was reported to have said that “the Government of India has nothing to negotiate with Pakistan on Kashmir”.

The Foreign Minister has maintained that such a statement was not calculated to open the way for the resumption of talks between the two countries. About reduction in expenditure on arms, Mr Pirzada has also reminded his Indian counterpart that from the very beginning it has been Pakistan’s view that negotiations on the subject would not be realistic if they were divorced from negotiations to reach a just and honourable settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.

[Meanwhile, as reported by our correspondent in New York,] President Johnson and Premier Kosygin met yesterday [June 23] for five hours at Glassboro, a small New Jersey town, and decided they would meet again tomorrow to continue discussions on Middle East, Viet-Nam, their bilateral relations and non-proliferation treaty.

The first Soviet-American Summit in six years, arranged after a week-long haggling over the venue of the meeting, apparently took off much better than expected.

But no understanding seems to have been reached, much less any agreement on any of the major issues arrived at except perhaps on the non-proliferation treaty on which differences had already been narrowed down before the Summit.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017