Breakthrough in Indo-Pak talks

DURBAN, Sept 3 (PTI) — India and Pakistan today overcame a prolonged deadlock to reach an understanding on the modalities for resumption of the stalled bilateral talks at the Foreign Secretary level.

The Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan reached the understanding in their discussions held for the last five days here on the sidelines of the NAM summit, the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra told reporters.

"Differences have been resolved and final instructions" would be given to the foreign secretaries for resumption of the dialogue to resolve outstanding issues by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif after they meet in New York on September 23, he said.

He described the understanding as a healthy development but refused to divulge the details which he said would be revealed after the Prime Ministers met later this month.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz told reporters earlier that no breakthrough had been achieved by the Foreign Secretaries on the modalities for resumption of the stalled dialogue process.

He said Mr Vajpayee and Mr Sharif, during their New York meeting, would "hopefully give guidance and further impetus to the dialogue process".

Mr Mishra said the talks between the foreign secretaries would begin after the Prime Ministers gave their instructions following their meeting in New York.

Asked whether substantive discussions between the two sides would now begin, Mr Mishra said it depended on the final instructions of the two prime ministers.

He told a questioner that Mr Vajpayee was seized of the details of the understanding while the question whether Mr Sharif was aware of it should be addressed to the Pakistani side.

"We believe they (Pakistanis) would be taking instructions from their leader," he said.

Mr Aziz yesterday met Mr Vajpayee and is understood to have discussed Indo-Pak relations and efforts being made by the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries to sort out differences on modalities for the resumption of the stalled bilateral talks.

UNI adds:

Meanwhile, contradicting Mr Aziz Pakistan Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed today said that he has succeeded in narrowing differences with India on the resumption of the official level talks stalled due to the contentious Jammu and Kashmir issue.

He told UNI that the series of talks with Indian Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath had "proved fruitful in narrowing down the gap in approaches of the two countries in resuming the talks".