Home secy talks to focus on visa, anti-terror policy
The meeting between Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani will follow the home secretary-level talks between the two countries, which will begin on Monday in Delhi.
Pakistan’s interior secretary Chaudhry Qamar Zaman, who was leading a six-member delegation for the two-day talks with home secretary G.K. Pillai, has arrived in Delhi.
Speaking to journalists after crossing over into India from the Attari border post in Amritsar, Zaman hoped of make some progress on easing the visa regimes. “We will be talking to our counterparts [on] how to make travel easier for the common man. One of the issues we intend to discuss is the visa issue between the two countries and how to make it easier and faster so that the common man gets the benefit out of it,” Mr Zaman said. The home secretaries’ talks would be centred around counter-terrorism, anti-narcotics cooperation, visa policy, release of prisoners, and other humanitarian issues. The last visa agreement between the two countries was signed in 1974. Islamabad has proposed group tourist visas, 90-day visa for business persons, and visa on arrival for persons aged 65 years old and above.
In the talks, the Indian side was expected to raise the issues of Pakistan’s reluctance to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26 November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai or to provide the voice samples of the handlers of the attackers. Also, India wants to send a commission to Pakistan to question the jailed Lashkar-e Tayyaaba (LeT) terrorists, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi in return for allowing a similar commission from Pakistan to visit India for questioning the investigating officer of the 26/11 probe and the judge of the trial court. For its part, Pakistan was expected to ask India about the progress of the probe into the Samjhauta Express blast in which a majority of the victims hailed from Pakistan, and the Ajmer Sharif blast case.
The home secretaries’ talks will be the first in a series of structured meetings after India and Pakistan simultaneously announced on February 10, four days after foreign secretary Nirupama Rao met her Pakistan counterpart in Bhutan, that they will resume the dialogue that was suspended after the Mumbai attacks. The commerce secretaries of the two countries were expected to meet in early April.
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