New Delhi: India is not going to discuss substantive issues like Kashmir with Pakistan in the proposed rounds of dialogue but is only attempting to create the "right atmosphere" for removing the trust deficit for a broad dialogue later.
"We are not going to discuss substantive issues like Kashmir. As of now now our effort is to create a right atmosphere. Only then some degree of trust can be created
between the two countries," highly-placed sources in the government said.
They said the effort is for eliminating the trust deficit and "we are not not talking to Pakistan on four issues that concern us".
There was no alternative but to talk to Pakistan as war was not an option, they said.
The government`s stand was made clear in response to a question at a journalistic interaction whether the government`s current moves to resume dialogue with Pakistan
would be picking up of threads from where the Musharraf regime left or would it be a fresh de novo effort from the beginning.
This was in the context of former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri`s recent claim that India and Pakistan were close to signing an agreement on some crucial issues.
Former President Pervez Musharraf had mooted four areas on which the Pakistani claimed the two countries had come close to an agrement. The areas included demilitarisation of Kashmir on both sides and the Siachen glacier and some kind of autonomy to these areas.
Recently in Bhutan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani decided on resuming dialogue between the two countries. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna will be visiting Pakistan in the middle of next month.
Bureau Report
