India, Pak foreign secys to meet on Aug 25

In telephone chat with her counterpart, Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh calls LoC firing by Pakistan “an impediment to peace.”

July 23, 2014 07:32 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 06:58 pm IST - New Delhi

Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh (in picture) and her Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry had a telephonic conversation on Wednesday . Photo: V. Sudershan

Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh (in picture) and her Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry had a telephonic conversation on Wednesday . Photo: V. Sudershan

The Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet on August 25 to discuss a road map for dialogue, two years after the Secretary-level bilateral talks.

The date was agreed on when Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh spoke to her counterpart, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury, over the phone on Wednesday afternoon.

The talks, which will be held in Islamabad, are expected to take place a month before Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends the United Nations General Assembly session in New York, where he is expected to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, on the sidelines.

While the Foreign Secretaries will be tasked with discussing the Prime Ministers’ agenda, they will discuss a resumption of dialogue on key issues, including granting India a status equivalent to most favoured nation, ratifying the visa relaxation agreement and ceasefire violations on the Line of Control.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said Ms. Singh told Mr. Chaudhury that the firing from Pakistan was an “impediment to peace”.

“Foreign Secretary [Ms. Singh] said it would be difficult to hold meaningful dialogue alongside the sound of bullets at the border. Peace and tranquillity on the LoC is one of the most important CBMs [confidence building measures],” he said.

To a question in Parliament on Wednesday, Minister of State for External Affairs General (Retd.) V.K. Singh said: “Pakistan’s sponsorship of cross-border terrorism in India and unprovoked firing along the Line of Control and the International Boundary in Jammu and Kashmir has continued unabated.”

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