New Delhi, December 2
The Pakistan army headquarters has issued a directive to its corps commanders and troops not to initiate anything that could be construed as a violation of the ceasefire with India along the Line of Control (LoC), outgoing Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir said today.

At a media interaction at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club here, he said both countries had also asked their respective DGMOs to fix a date for a rare face-to-face meeting between them, as was agreed upon between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York.

His comments are significant in view of the rapid deterioration in relations between the two countries following the beheading of an Indian soldier in January and frequent ceasefire violations thereafter by Pakistani troops, which led New Delhi to put the dialogue on hold. Pitching for the resumption of a “full-spectrum” dialogue between the two countries, Bashir said he had reasons to believe that bilateral relations would be on an “upward trajectory” in the coming months, if not sooner.

He emphasised that Pakistan was not in any way seeking to underestimate the Mumbai attacks while calling for the resumption of dialogue. A lot of time had been lost due to various reasons, but things were now moving in the right direction in taking the trial of the accused to its conclusion.

He was hopeful that speedy steps would be taken in Pakistan so that ‘’we can put aside what is an emotive issue in India”.