By IANS,
New Delhi : External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna will go to New York Sep 22 on a six-day visit to represent India at the UN General Assembly session and will also meet his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi there amid a growing chill in sub-continental ties.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao will meet her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in New York to review Islamabad’s action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage. The outcome of the talks between the foreign secretaries could set the tone for the meeting between Krishna and Qureshi.
The dates for the meetings are being worked out, official sources said here Friday.
Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh will also be in the US around that time to attend the G20 summit of the world’s major and emerging economies that is aimed at mitigating the global financial meltdown.
The meeting between the foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session was agreed upon when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Reza Gilani at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt July 16.
According to the contentious Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement, the foreign secretaries of the two countries will meet “as often as possible” before the foreign ministers meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. But no meeting has taken place so far due to Pakistan’s perceived inaction against the 26/11 terrorists.
In an interaction with journalists, Krishna Thursday underlined India’s mounting exasperation at Pakistan’s lack of inaction in prosecuting the 26/11 perpetrators and made it clear that terror and negotiations cannot go on at the same time.
He had also said that his meeting with Qureshi will depend on the meeting between the two foreign secretaries.
Signalling India’s hardening of stand, Krishna said that Pakistan has a vested interest in blocking the inquiry into the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and safeguarding terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed.