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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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.”