Hafiz Saeed issue in talk counter-productive: Pak

Lahore, Feb 24: As both the countries brace up for the Foreign secretary level talk, Pakistan foreign secretary Salman Bashir said that demand to hand over JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks would counter-productive.

Adopting a positive approach to the talk with his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao, Bashir said that it was too early to make any predictions.

"In my view it is better not to view this (tomorrow's talks) from the point of success or failure. Let's wait till tomorrow. There will be more clarity on this tomorrow and we'll take it from there," foreign secretary Salman Bashir told reporters here in reply to a question before leaving for New Delhi.

Commenting on India's demand for handing over of Saeed, Bashir said that inclusion of the issue into the discussion would hamper meaningful outcome of the talk.

"In my view, there is great clarity that bracketing these specific issues with the talks is counter-productive."

Bashir said that Pakistan was clear "on these issues, on counter-terrorism and other problems."

"There is only one way -- the first thing is that the two sides had agreed in Sharm-el-Sheikh that terrorism is a common problem. That is, the threat of terrorism is both to India and Pakistan as it is to other countries of the world," Bashir said.

Asked whether Pakistan would take up the issue of India's alleged interference in Balochistan, he said that Pakistan will discuss the matter if the issue raised.

He added that Balochistan issue is part of counter-terrorism.

OneIndia News