PM, Gilani to meet today

India today appeared to be seeing signs of thaw in relationship with Pakistan as prime ministers of the two countries meet here tomorrow to review progress in Islamabad’s actions to punish the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks last year.

Foreign secretaries of the two countries today discussed a whole range of issues including the detention and release of Jamaat-Ud Dawaa chief Mohammed Hafeez Saeed, believed to be the mastermind of the 26/11 attacks.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir talked of a “tall order” after his 90-minute meeting with Shivshankar Menon in the small hours of the day, shortly after the Indian official landed from Paris.

“We want to have a broad-based engagement. We want to turn the corner in our relationship. We have agreed to continue our conversation. There is a tall order. It is uphill. Pakistan is prepared,” Bashir said on his meeting with Menon in which they discussed all bilateral issues.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani tomorrow morning.

Sounding positive on the Indo-Pak engagement in this sea resort town, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna said: “Well, I think there is less acrimony now. Even the statement made by Pakistan in the ministerial conference was a mild on and perhaps it might be the harbinger of the kind of relationship between the two countries which is in mutual interest.”

On Bashir’s stand that talks between the two countries should not be held hostage to one or the other issue like Saeed, Krishna said Pakistan did make an attempt to go at Saeed but the court released him.

“Wisdom would have dictated that they should have appealed in a higher court of law. But let us wait for the unfolding of the events further,” he said, adding one would have to await the outcome of the crucial meeting of the prime ministers.

Singh-Gilani meeting is a following of the discussions the prime minister had with President Asif Ali Zardari at Yekaterinberg in Russia last month when a stern message was given to Pakistan that it would have to stop terror emanating from its soil directed against India.

On Pakistani investigations into the Mumbai attack, Bashir said these were not primarily the domain of foreign ministries but were making it possible for the relevant people to communicate with each other. “And I think it goes to the credit of both sides that we have been able to communicate all the different aspects of those investigations,” he said.