India -Pak talks will resume soon

A day after Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed to resume talks at the level of foreign ministers, Pakistan said the meeting in Thimphu had gone “better than expectations”, but sustained efforts would be needed to bridge the “trust deficit” between the two sides.

The outcome of the engagement had been “better than the expectations,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference here today. “It (the resumption of dialogue at the political level) is a step in the right direction, it is a concrete development and we will build on it.”


Qureshi said he intended to contact External Affairs Minister S M Krishna as soon as the Indian Parliament’s Budget session ended on May 7 to discuss dates for a meeting to “take things forward”. He had “certain ideas” to reduce the trust deficit, which he would share with Krishna, Qureshi said.

Asked if the format of the dialogue would be changed, the Foreign Minister said there was “no difficulty” over the nomenclature. “If all issues are being discussed, call it comprehensive dialogue or call it composite dialogue or call it what you may. It is the spirit behind the dialogue that counts,” he said.

At her press conference in Thimphu yesterday, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had expressed an identical view. “I don’t think we have to get stuck with the nomenclature. Dialogue is the only way forward,” she had said.

Diplomatic sources told  today that Pakistan agreed to a change in the format of talks in return for New Delhi’s agreeing to resume broad-based engagement with it. There were several indications during Qureshi’s news conference that Pakistan was amenable to accepting a format other than the composite dialogue.

The Foreign Minister said there was “no doubt” that a trust deficit existed, and “we have to bridge it through confidence-building measures”. The trust deficit won’t disappear “overnight” or “in one sitting”, Qureshi said, “We have to be realistic and pragmatic. It is a process. If we allow the process to continue, obviously with the passage of time, the deficit will be narrowed down.”

Qureshi said Singh had told Gilani at their meeting that he wanted relations between the two sides to improve to the level that the Prime Ministers could be on “first name basis” and “pick up the phone and talk on any issue”. Gilani asked Singh to visit Pakistan, as he (Singh) had fond memories of his childhood in a village near Chakwal where he was born, Qureshi said.