JOIN USA press release issued by the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad quoted Qureshi as saying that he was looking forward to talk to Krishna over the phone on Tuesday. The Pakistani foreign minister also stated that Islamabad wanted “uninterrupted” dialogue with New Delhi in future.
Krishna and Qureshi are expected to talk over phone about the modalities for bringing down the post 26/11 trust deficit and rebuilding mutual confidence between the two nations. The phone call is supposed to lead to the finalisation of the follow up actions by the two countries subsequent to the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Thimphu.
Though Krishna had earlier told the Rajya Sabha that he would speak to Qureshi over phone last Friday, it was later deferred, ostensibly because Qureshi wanted to give final touches to Islamabad’s own set of proposals before taking the call from his counterpart in India.
“In Thimphu, you are aware, both PMs asked their External Affairs Ministers and Foreign Secretaries to meet as soon as possible. So, the framework is there. The only thing is to decide and identify a mutually convenient time slot to have the telephonic conversation. Both sides are in touch with each other to identify that slot,” Joint Secretary and spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs Vishnu Prakash said in New Delhi.
Sources, however, said Krishna would speak to Qureshi over phone in the forenoon on Tuesday, as he would leave for to Kazakhstan in the afternoon.
“While the two countries had agreed to come back to the negotiating table to discuss all the issues, in order to achieve concrete results it was important that the dialogue between the two countries continued uninterruptedly,” Qureshi was quoted as saying in a statement.