DHAKA, July 31: India and Pakistan boosted their stalled peace process with “positive” informal talks on the sidelines of a regional forum late on Monday. The countries’ foreign secretaries met for about an hour in a hotel in the Bangladeshi capital, which is hosting a two-day South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) forum.

It was their first meeting since relations were strained by the July 11 Mumbai train bombings.

But on Monday, both sides stressed the importance of the peace process which began in January 2004.

“The peace process between the two countries is important and all possible efforts should be made to see that this process is not in any way adversely affected,” Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran told reporters.

“We have agreed that we will remain in touch.”

Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan described the meeting as “positive”.

“We discussed where we stand and how we should move forward,” he said, adding: “The peace process is important for both the countries ... there is no other option.”—AFP

Qudssia Akhlaque adds from Islamabad: Earlier, at the Saarc Standing Committee meeting Pakistani and Indian delegations had a terse exchange when India raised the issue of South Asia Free Trade Agreement (Safta) bypassing the bilateral route available for it and complained about Pakistan thwarting it.

Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told Dawn that India had a problem of misinterpreting Pakistan’s position and said it was the only Saarc member country to have such a misgiving.

“The Indian delegation raised the issue during the standing committee meeting and wanted to discuss what they see as Pakistan’s violation of Safta provisions,” the spokesperson said and added: “We told them that Articles 19 and 20 provided a clear mechanism for resolving a problem or some technical issue.”

She explained that under the mechanism available once the bilateral mechanism had been exhausted the matter could be referred to the Safta committee of experts and even if that failed then commerce ministers of Safta could be approached. “But India did not follow that procedure and even threatened at one point to unravel the whole process because Pakistan was jeopardising Safta,” she said.

Ms Aslam underlined that Pakistan was committed to Safta which was signed at the Saarc Summit in Islamabad.

Apparently, India because of its own tariffs, non-tariffs and general trade restrictions is now trying to scuttle the regional trade agreement.

On Tuesday the Saarc foreign ministers will have an informal session which will be followed by a formal meeting of the Council of Ministers (COM) on August 2. It is not clear yet if Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri would informally meet the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmad who is representing India at the COM meeting.