India would like to work with Pakistan to help the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) achieve its potential. This message was conveyed at a meeting between Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Chaudhry, in Islamabad, on Tuesday.
This is the first official meeting between the foreign secretaries of the neighbours since August last year.
Talks between the two countries were called off with India expressing anger over a meeting last year between the Pakistani High Commissioner in India and Kashmiri separatist leaders ahead of a scheduled interaction of the two foreign secretaries.
SAARC yatraJaishankar is in Pakistan as part of a tour of SAARC member countries.
The decision to send the foreign secretary on the regional tour was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 14 after he telephonically spoke with the presidents of Sri Lanka and Afghanistan and the prime ministers of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“I conveyed the expectations of our leadership on SAARC and their determination to forge a cooperative relationship with all our neighbours. We discussed ideas and initiatives to take SAARC forward,” Jaishankar said after his meeting with Chaudhry.
He added that his visit had provided an opportunity to discuss bilateral relations.
“We engaged on each other’s concerns and interests in an open manner. We agreed to work together to find common ground and narrow differences. I reiterated our known concerns on cross-border terrorism, including on the Mumbai case,” he said.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.