Islamabad: Pakistan has not received any
formal or official proposal from India for holding the next
round of Foreign Secretary-level talks in Islamabad, the
Foreign Office has said.
Responding to External Affairs Minister S M Krishna's
comments that it was now the Indian Foreign Secretary's turn
to go to Islamabad for parleys, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul
Basit told the media that Pakistan welcomed the remarks which
are "really encouraging".
However, Basit noted that this was the Indian
minister's "personal desire" and not the official position.
He made it clear that Pakistan had not received any
formal or official proposal from India for holding the next
round of Foreign Secretary-level talks.
Talks between Pakistan and India would only be
possible through mutual understanding and as India has not yet
conveyed anything to Pakistan it is not known when the next
round of talks would be held, Basit said.
Rao had met her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in
New Delhi on February 25, the first official contact between
the two countries since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which
India had blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba.
The two sides did not make any major breakthrough in
the talks.
Since then, Pakistan has been insisting that India
should resume the stalled composite dialogue process without
conditions.
New Delhi has said it prefers a gradual process for
the normalisation of relations.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 15:39