JOIN USIndo-Pak talks end in logjam
The first step toward rebuilding confidence in wide-ranging issue areas between the foreign secretaries of the two countries, though inconclusive, was billed by Indian diplomats as “useful”. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said the two sides agreed to remain in touch.
As there was not much evidence of narrowing down the “trust deficit”, India handed over three dossiers containing names of 34 terrorists, including Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed. But Pakistan retorted, saying “it was literature rather than evidence” and adopted an aggressive stance in which Islamabad did not want to be “lectured by New Delhi” over terror.
Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir later apologised for using the word “literature” and said the dossier now given would be examined seriously. The spat between the neigbours continued hours after the talks between Rao and Bashir ended. Bashir remarked: “Pakistan does not believe in cosmetic engagement, that India should lecture us and demand that Pakistan should do this or that. India should not think we are desperate for the dialogue”.
Later in the evening, India shot back, saying the dossier was no literature but hard evidence. “Pakistan may be a victim of its own creation but India is a victim of their creation.”
A government source asserted that “our foreign secretary got the brief from a democratically elected government, while they took it from a man in khaki at the General Head Quarters” (meaning Pakistan Army chief Gen A P Kayani).
The dossier that Rao handed over to her counterpart during the talks, held at the Hyderabad House here, contained names of 34 terrorists wanted by New Delhi, Hafiz Saeed, along with a demand for handing them over and other effective actions.