NEW DELHI (PTI): The Indo Pak foreign secretary level talks are likely to be delayed by another month or so as Islamabad is caught up with the fast moving political developments in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s preoccupation with other issues such as the threatened JKLFs march across the line of control into Kashmir appears to have interrupted the chain of high level meetings between the two sides
Talks on the Tulbul project the Saichin issue the question of banning the use of chemical weapons and the demarcation of the Sir Creek area were to culminate in the foreign secretary level talks.
Indications here are that foreign secretary J.N Dixit and his Pakistani counterpart Mr. Shahryar Khan are unlikely to meet before Mays end.
The sixth round of talks was originally scheduled to be held in New Delhi in February.
The process of high level contacts is expected to resume next week with talks on the Tulbul project. The Pakistani delegation will be led by the secretary in the water resources ministry.
Both sides are keen to issue a joint declaration on the question of banning the development production deployment and use of chemical weapons.
Experts of the two countries are likely to discuss the issue before the matter is taken up by the foreign secretaries.
Also on the table is early resumption of dialogue on the contentious Siachin issue. At the fifth round of talks held in Islamabad sometime back there was consensus that the two sides should try and avoid extraneous political
I factors during further discussions on the issue.
On the Kashmir issue the governments thinking is that it will not have talks with Pakistan unless there is an end to active support from the Pakistani side to terrorists operating in the valley and in Punjab The Prime Minister of India and Pakistan are likely to meet in Brazil in June during the “earth summit”.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 24, 1992
