Just four days after Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani had met in Mohali to watch the India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final and talk over dinner, Pakistan on Sunday announced that the stalled talks over the world’s highest battlefield — Siachen and Sir Creek — would resume later this month.
“The defence secretaries of the two countries will meet on April 22 to hold talks on Siachen and Sir Creek,” a senior Pakistan defence ministry official told this newspaper. “The Indian defence secretary will come to Pakistan and the talks will be held in Rawalpindi (the garrison city next to Islamabad),” he said.
The two countries’ commerce secretaries are due to meet a week later, on April 29, another official said.
Mr Gilani, meanwhile, in a goodwill gesture, congratulated Dr Manmohan Singh on Sunday on the Indian team’s victory over Sri Lanka in the World Cup final late on Saturday night. In a message, he said this year’s World Cup Cup had been successful in bringing the cricketing fraternity even closer together and making cricket more popular worldwide.
Prior to the Mohali summit, India’s home secretary and Pakistan’s interior secretary had held talks in New Delhi which were seen here as “extremely positive”.