INDIA/PAKISTAN: Indian media slams outcome of a meeting between Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers in Islamabad

Record ID: 379451

  • Title: INDIA/PAKISTAN: Indian media slams outcome of a meeting between Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers in Islamabad
  • Date: 17th July 2010
  • Summary: NEW DELHI, INDIA (JULY 16, 2010) (REUTERS) **CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY** NEWS PAPER HEADLINES A PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING THE INDIAN FOREIGN MINISTER S.M. KRISHNA AND PAKISTANI FOREIGN MINISTER SHAH MEHMOOD QURESHI LOOKING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS HEADLINE READING: "FISSURES RUN DEEP BUT INDIA, PAK AGREE TO MEET AGAIN" HEADLINE OF THE TRIBUNE NEWS PAPER READING: "INDIA-PAK TA
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA9S755GP0ODZ4MDA0IIJJOZ2TJ
  • Story Text: Indian media slams the outcome of a meeting between Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers in Islamabad where they failed to achieve any tangible measures to rebuild the trust fractured by the Mumbai attacks.
    Pakistan's Shah Mehmood Qureshi and India's S.M. Krishna held long parleys in an effort to revive the peace process that was broken off after the 2008 assault on the Indian financial capital that killed 166 people.
    But neither minister set a date for future talks or announced any concrete measures that might soothe tensions. Both were grim-faced and sombre at a news conference after the meeting and had little interaction.
    India has blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants for the Mumbai attacks and Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, in remarks published in an Indian newspaper on Wednesday (July 14), accused Pakistan's main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of orchestrating the assault.
    India has been pushing Pakistan to take action against the perpetrators of the attack as a pre-condition for re-launching the peace process between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
    However on Friday morning, most Indian newspapers ran headlines slamming the talks as a failure.
    Popular daily The Times of India ran the headline: "Bruising spat erupts at peace talks briefing" - an apparent reference at the near acrimonious manner in which the two ministers addressed their joint news conference.
    "Fissures run deep but India, Pak agree to meet again" ran the Indian Express newspaper, while the northern Indian daily The Tribune led with "India-Pak talks end in stalemate."
    Hindustan Times headline screamed "Indo-Pak talks stall over terror impasse".
    Political commentator Saeed Naqvi, said it was the first time in nearly 62 years that an Indian Foreign Minister had gone to Pakistan at a time when India-Pakistan relations were not the top priority for Islamabad, who is currently grappling with the situation on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the disturbances within.
    Naqvi said no one really hoped for any breakthrough in the just concluded meeting and it would be a slow process where the two sides, prodded by Washington, would continue meeting and talking.
    "New Delhi is proceeding very cautiously. They are saying look, start with terror, bit-by-bit, if something is resolved then one can proceed. So, we are going to see a great deal of running fast to stand still," Naqvi said.
    On Thursday (July 15) Krishna said Qureshi had assured him that his government would take into account in its investigation the information gleaned by Indian officials from a Pakistani-American, David Headley.
    Headley pleaded guilty to working with LeT to plan the attacks and Pillai said evidence against the ISI emerged from his interrogation. U.S. authorities, who arrested Headley last October, allowed Indian investigators to question him for a week last month.
    Krishna said the unravelling of the conspiracy behind the Mumbai assault would be the biggest confidence-building measure Pakistan could take.
    Shabbir Rishi, a Kashmiri youth currently working in New Delhi, said the impasse between the two rivals was hurting the common people in both countries.
    "From 1947 the talks are going on but we can't get any results. Everybody is suffering, be it the common people from India or the common people from Pakistan -- they are suffering from this," Rishi said.
    Bilal Ahmed, a college student, said in spite of the set backs, talks was the only way forward.
    "Talks should be there because only if they talk with each other -- a political solution can be found," Ahmed said.
    Security remains India's top concern in talks with Pakistan after Mumbai. Pakistan wants discussions on other issues, including its core dispute with India over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars between the two countries since independence from Britain in 1947.
    Both ministers agreed that the countries would continue talks, acknowledging the decades of distrust between them.
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