Indo-Pak dialogue a fresh breeze, but without big hopes
0 
Local experts believe that the resumption of the Indo-Pakistan foreign ministers' talks scheduled in Islamabad on Thursday will bring a fresh breeze to the region though no big hopes should be pinned on it.
The coming Thursday talks will be discussing terrorism on top of its agenda and exploring ways to reduce trust deficit between the two countries.
Both the Pakistani legislature and the public hope for bringing onto the table of the Thursday ministerial talks all the key issues existing between the two countries, particularly the border security issue, the Kashmir dispute and the water dispute.
But the Indian side is trying to avoid touching upon such topics in the coming talks, which are vital for the peace and prosperity in the region, said Farhat Akram, a researcher with Islamabad Policy Research Institute, adding that the "locked horns " situation would remain.
The Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna recently said that India would like to talk to Pakistan on a number of concerns it has, but the minister stressed that India's "primary concern would continue to be terror which emanates from Pakistan."
"Nobody would pull a rabbit out of the hat," said a local analyst on anonymity while commenting on the coming talks between India and Pakistan.
Prior to the Thursday talks, reports about conflicts in the border area between the two countries have kept coming in. A couple of days ago, the police website of the Punjab province was allegedly attacked by Indian hackers. These incidents have cast a shadow over the coming talks between the countries.
But local watchers believed that unless some very serious incidents like the 2009 Mumbai attack happened such kind of incidents would not seriously affect the coming talks as they did often happen in the past prior to or even during the talks between the two sides.
The Mumbai attack which left some 166 people killed happened on November 26, 2009 just hours after the Indo-Pakistani foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi. And the incident led to a halt of the ministers' meeting between the two sides.
Farhat Akram believed that recent unpleasant incidents of border crossfire and hacker attack will not have a big negative impact on the Thursday talks.
"No one has gained anything by not talking," said Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit in a statement, adding the bilateral talks are important and would help the two countries to proceed and try to accommodate each others concerns.
Analysts believe that the ice that melted in Thimphu, Bhutan when Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani met his Indian counterpart Dr. Manmohan Singh in the sidelines of the South Asian summit on April 29 is expected to further thaw on the coming bilateral ministerial talks.
Go to Forum >>0 Comments