By IANS
New Delhi : India and Pakistan will begin talks on cultural cooperation in Islamabad from Thursday, continuing with the fourth round of composite dialogue.
The two-day talks on the promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields, including culture and tourism, will be led by Badal Das, secretary in the Indian ministry of culture, and his Pakistani counterpart Salim Gul Shaikh.
"The talks will cover issues relating to media, tourism, culture, education, sports and youth affairs," Pakistan's acting high commissioner Afrasiab told IANS here.
India is likely to press Pakistan to allow the distribution of Indian movies there and liberalise the visa regime, especially for visiting artists.
Promotion of tourism through cross-border package tours by select tour operators will also be high on the agenda.
This will be followed by two-day home-secretary level talks on terrorism and drug trafficking in New Delhi July 3.
A month later, the commerce secretaries of the two countries will discuss means to enhance economic and commercial cooperation in New Delhi for two days starting July 31. This will be followed by a meeting of a joint study group on trade Aug 2.
The talks on the Tulbul Navigation project (Pakistan calls it Wullar Barrage), which were to be held June 26-27 but were postponed, will now be held Aug 21-22.
India and Pakistan launched the fourth round of composite dialogue in Islamabad in March between their foreign secretaries with talks on peace and security, including confidence-building measures and Jammu and Kashmir.
Since then, the peace process has slowed down largely due to massive civil unrest in Pakistan following the sacking of chief justice Iftekhar Mohammed Choudhary by President Pervez Musharraf.
Protesting his arbitrary suspension, a large section of the Pakistani civil society, including lawyers and journalists, took to the streets, posing the most serious challenge ever to the authority of Musharraf.
Talks on the demilitarisation of Siachen glacier were held in April but ended without any significant breakthrough, with India reiterating its position on the authentication of the ground position of troops on the glacier.