Indo-Pak Foreign Secys meet in Delhi, Feb 25

I / Islamabad February 12, 2010, 16:49 IST

Pakistan today announced that the Foreign Secretary-level talks with India will be held in New Delhi on February 25 during which it will raise all "core issues" and the need for their "expeditious resolution through resumption of Composite Dialogue".  

"It was decided that foreign secretary level talks between the two countries would be held on February 25 in New Delhi," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement here.  

A decision on holding the Foreign Secretary-level talks in New Delhi on February 25 was taken at a meeting between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the PM's house here this morning.  

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had invited her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir to New Delhi for talks. India says the talks would be focussed on terrorism, but would be ready to discuss any other issue that Pakistan raises.  India had proposed February 18 and 25 for the meeting in New Delhi.  

During the talks, the Pakistan side should raise all the "core issues and impress upon India the need for the expeditious resolution to resumption of the Composite Dialogue", the statement said.  Gilani directed Bashir, who was also present in the meeting, that the talks with his Indian counterpart should be "result-oriented and meaningful."

Jamiat-e-Ulema Islami chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Chairman of the Parliamentary committee on Kashmir, also attended today's meeting that discussed the "whole gamut of Pak-India relationship, particularly the Kashmir and water disputes between the two countries", the statement said.  

Rao and Bashir had earlier met in New York in September to review the progress made by Pakistan into the Mumbai terror attacks.  

India suspended the composite dialogue in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and linked the resumption of the process to Pakistan taking action against the perpetrators of the assault.