Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries to meet on May 20

Islamabad, May 20: Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir will meet here today ahead of talks between Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday.

India is expected to press for launch of more cross-Line of Control (LoC) bus services and early operationalisation of the truck service. The Indian side is also expected to propose increasing the frequency of fortnightly Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot bus services to make these weekly.
Jammu and Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and various confidence-building measures will also come up for discussion. Unprovoked firing on the LoC and handing over of dreaded criminal Dawood Ibrahim may also figure in the talks.

All issues that have a bearing on India will come up for discussion. Mukherjee in his meeting with his counterpart will pick up the threads of the dialogue process, where it was left during the Musharraf regime.

India is looking for concrete action by Pakistan in ending cross border terrorism and infiltration. With New Delhi determined to over come the hurdles in taking the peace process forward, observers are hopeful that the present round of talks will lead to further improvement of relations between the two countries.

This is the first high-level contact between the two countries after the newly elected government assumed office in Islamabad.

ANI