Indo-Pak talks on nuke CBMs on Oct 18

New Delhi, Oct 18: India and Pakistan will begin expert-level talks on conventional and nuclear Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) here today.

During the two-day talks, the first day will see discussions on conventional CBMs led by T C A Raghavan, Joint Secretary (PAI), in the Ministry of External Affairs from the Indian side, and Pakistani side led by Aizaz Ahmed Choudhary, Director General (South Asia) in the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

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Representatives from Defence Ministry and Home Ministry from Indian and Pakistani sides will be present in the meeting.

Discussion will also be held on issues like arrangements to deal with inadvertent crossers, an Agreement on Prevention of Incidents at Sea and other CBMs.

The talks on nuclear CBMs, which will be led by K C Singh, Additional Secretary (IO), in the Ministry of External Affairs from the Indian side will be held on Thursday.

Khalid Aziz Babar, who is the Additional Secretary (UN and EC) in their Foreign Affairs Ministry, will lead the Pakistani side.

The Indian delegation will include, representatives from Defence Ministry, Department of Atomic Energy, National Security Council Secretariat and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Both sides are expected to review the progress made in the implementation of existing agreements and security issues.

The meeting that will be the fifth round of talks on convention and nuclear CBMs will focus on modalities to improve the level of trust between India and Pakistan in the field of non-conventional weapons.

The last round of talks on nuclear as well as conventional CBMs were held in April 2006 in Islamabad.

Islamabad and New Delhi will also hold second meeting on anti-terrorism mechanism in New Delhi on October 22, a few days after the conclusion of CBMs talks.

ANI
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