Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday said it was
looking for "forward movement" in the ongoing Foreign
Secretary-level talks with India, hoping that the two
countries would not get caught in the status quo mode.
"When you have long-standing issues, there is a great
sense of responsibility with it and seriousness of approach.
Pakistan has had consistent stand that it is better to talk
than not to talk," Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina
Rabbani told reporters responding to questions on the Indo-Pak
Foreign Secretary-level meeting here.
"It is better to resolve long-standing issues rather than
let those issues fester and become larger than life and affect
development and peace of the region," she said.
On the ongoing Indo-Pak talks here, Rabbani said "we are
looking for forward movement and I think as long as we have
some forward movement to report back which we had from
Interior Ministers` and other meetings so far, we should be
somewhat happy with the the outcome.
"What we don`t want is to get caught in the status quo
mode where we just reiterate our positions. Hopefully, this
meeting will give us more confidence to move forward."
When pointed out that there was a conflict over the
issues of core concerns between the two countries with India
calling terrorism as its prime concern and Pakistan sticking
to Jammu and Kashmir, Rabbani said "both can meet if both
agree that terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir are the core
concerns."
PTI
