NEW DELHI, May 5: Four sets of Pakistan-India talks, covering issues that include Siachen and Sir Creek, are to be held this month as a follow-up to last month’s meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it was officially announced here on Thursday. “Pursuant to the Joint Statement issued at the end of President Musharraf’s visit to New Delhi in April wherein the desire of the two leaders was stated that they look forward to an early start of the Amritsar-Lahore bus service as well as the bus service to religious places such as Nankana Sahib, it has now been decided that the technical-level talks for this bus service would be held on the 10th and 11th of May in Lahore,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

On the same dates there will be the technical-level meeting between the Indian Coast Guards and Pakistan Maritime Agency in Islamabad. They will seek to beef up communications between the two organizations, mainly to benefit straying fishermen. “This is one of the confidence-building measures that was agreed to after the foreign secretaries meeting in June last year,” the spokesman said.

The announcement of talks on the proposed new bus service between Amritsar and Lahore coincided with the third run on Thursday of trans-Kashmir bus service. May 25 and 26 will see the second round of composite dialogue talks on the Siachen issue at the defence secretaries’ level. Immediately, thereafter on May 27 and 28 talks on the Sir Creek issue will be held between the surveyor-generals from both sides. Both these meetings will also be held at Islamabad.

Also in keeping with the April 18 Joint Statement that called for the reopening of the Karachi and Mumbai consulates by the year end, Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner Munawwar Saeed Bhatti returned from Mumbai on Thursday after visiting a few possible sites where a new consulate house is expected to be built from scratch. In the meantime a few options are being considered for a rented accommodation to host the consulate’s offices and residential quarters.

Both countries will need some 20 personnel to handle the growing demand for visas, trade inquiries and other assorted routines. Meanwhile, sources said the next Saarc summit may now be held in Dhaka either in the first week of September or in November. Since Dhaka gets heavy rains in September, the November option was likely to be preferred.

That would mean that the leaders of India and Pakistan would have at least one more opportunity to meet before the next Saarc meeting, as they are both expected to attend the 60th anniversary celebrations of the United Nations in New York in September.