Meeting on Kartarpur corridor not resumption of dialogue: India

India said on Saturday that the meeting next week with Pakistan to discuss the modalities for the Kartarpur corridor was in no way a resumption of a bilateral dialogue.

"It is not any resumption of bilateral talks, let me make it very clear that it is not in any way a resumption of a bilateral dialogue. It is related to emotions and sentiments of the Indian citizens of the Sikh faith and our decision to meet reflects our strong commitment to operationalize the Kartarpur Sahib corridor on the occasion of 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said here in response to queries.

He said there is need to understand the objective of the meeting.

"It has nothing to do with any kind of the resumption of bilateral talks. This is to respect the sentiments and the will of the Indian citizens of Sikh faith and this has been a long pending demand and this meeting is going to address that part which we have announced in the press release. We are happy that now the Pakistanis are coming for this meeting on March 14," he said.

He also ruled out the two countries departing from the scheduled agenda and discussing the prevailing tension.

"I don't think there is any mention of any such thing which you are referring to in our statement. We issued a press statement last night, another press statement has been issued earlier as well about what is the purpose of Kartarpur talks and the meeting which is now going to take place in Attari," he said.

--IANS

ps/vd