India, Pak agree to carry forward dialogue

Ajay Kaul

Thimphu, Feb 6 (PTI) India and Pakistan tonight agreedon the need for constructive talks to resolve all outstandingissues after a fresh round of parleys in an attempt to infusenew life to their stalled dialogue process.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistanicounterpart Salman Bashir met in the Bhutanese capital for 90minutes and had "useful and frank" discussions.

The meeting on the sidelines of the SAARC meeting ofForeign Secretaries came six months after a failed round oftalks between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and hisPakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad.

Rao and Bashir, who were also meeting after a gap ofsix months, had also held an informal exchange briefly lastnight.

"The Foreign Secretaries had useful and frankdiscussions... They agreed on the need for constructivedialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve all outstandingissues," MEA spokesman Vishnu Prakash said after the meeting.

"They affirmed the need to carry forward the dialogueprocess," he said. .