India, Pak foreign secys to meet at Dhaka today

NEW DELHI: Foreign secretary Shyam Saran is set to meet Pakistan foreign secretary Riyaz Mohammad Khan at the SAARC ministerial meeting in Dhaka on Monday.

This will be the first official contact between India and Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks and the subsequent postponement of the Indo-Pak foreign secretary level talks.

India is expected to query Pakistan on the steps taken to curb cross-border terrorism and look for some concrete action from the Pakistani side. The foreign secretary level meeting will be followed by a two-day foreign ministerial level meeting. Minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed will be attending the meeting, while Pakistan will be represented by foreign minister Khurshed Mahmud Kasuri.

New Delhi has repeatedly said that the dialogue process is dependent on the steps taken by Pakistan to curb and end cross-border terrorism. While, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh averred that “elements accross the border’’ were responsible for the Mumbai blasts, security agencies too have collected evidence of Pakistan’s role in terrorist activities.

New Delhi had said that Islamabad should arrest and hand over to India underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Syed Salahuddin, to show its commitment to the fight against terror.

New Delhi has also maintained that Islamabad has been furnished with evidence on cross-border terrorism but has failed to act in the past, and that it is now time for some action on the ground. India, on its part, will continue supplying evidence of cross-border terrorism to Islamabad.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia will inaugurate the two-day talks. The 14th SAARC Summit is to be held in New Delhi early next year. SAARC is a regional grouping of seven South Asian countries inlcuding India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan. Afghanistan is now joining the grouping and is to be inducted in the regional forum at the next SAARC Summit.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministers will also deliberate on the application from South Korea, US and EU to become SAARC observers.