M A I N   N E W S

India, Pak may talk terror next month
Ashok Tuteja/TNS

New Delhi, April 9
India and Pakistan are discussing the dates when the Home/Interior secretaries of the two countries could meet to take up terrorism and other security related issues as part of the dialogue process between the two countries.

Indications are that the meeting will take place after the Budget session of Parliament ends in the third week of May, sources said. Pakistan had proposed mid-April for the meeting. However, New Delhi expressed its inability to send Home Secretay R K Singh to Islamabad around that time in view of the Chief Ministers' meet on internal security here on April 16.

The meeting between the Home/Interior secretaries is expected to discuss the issue of terrorism at length as was suggested by both India and Pakistan after yesterday's meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.

Zardari, in fact, also told the Indian PM that the issue of Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the Mumbai attack, could also be discussed by the Home/Interior secretaries.

The two top officials could may also sign the liberalised visa agreement that India and Pakistan have finalised to make it easier for the people of the two countries to travel, especially the business community.

The sources said External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is expected to travel to Islamabad in July-August to review the progress at the end of the second round of the dialogue process, that was revived in February last year after a hiatus of more than two years in the wake of the Mumbai massacre.

Asked if the PM's proposed visit to Pakistan could also materialise by the end of the year, the sources said it all depended on concrete results emerging from the dialogue process. ''The PM has already stated that he would visit Pakistan if there is something solid to celebrate,'' they added.

The sources welcomed the Pakistan President's statement that Islamabad was looking at adopting the India-China model of bilateral relations in its ties with India so that both countries could gain economically.