By IANS,
New Delhi: More than a month after their foreign-secretary level talks, India indicated its willingness to keep Pakistan engaged at this level, but has yet to hear from Islamabad either on the talks or the three dossiers it has given linking Pakistani militants with terror attacks in India.
“Pakistan has yet to come back to us. The channels are open but it’s for them to decide,” a highly placed source close to the government said here Saturday.
According to sources, India is willing to have a second round of talks between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in Islamabad, but has not heard anything from the neighbouring country.
It is up to Islamabad to take the lead in the matter now as the first round of talks was held at India’s initiative in New Delhi on Feb 25, sources pointed out.
Rao has yet to get an invite from her Pakistani counterpart to visit Islamabad for talks. The Pakistani side has not responded as they want to move the talks from the level of foreign secretaries to that of foreign ministers.
Islamabad has been consistently pitching for the resumption of composite dialogue, for which India, however, is not yet ready.
India gave the Pakistani side three dossiers linking Pakistan-based terrorists to various terror attacks in India, but Islamabad has yet to get back on action taken on these documents.
Pakistan’s perceived inaction on India’s core concerns over cross-border terror has dimmed possibilities of any breakthrough when Indian and Pakistani leaders meet on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Thimphu towards April-end.
“We are not satisfied with the little that Pakistan has done to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks and to unravel the conspiracy behind the carnage,” said the source.
It was indicated that there was virtually no possibility of a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington mid-April.