Our Correspondent / New Delhi
In a bid to break the ice after three years India has decided to begin interaction with Pakistan at high level. India External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will talk on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session next week.
“We have decided that the meeting will be held. The Permanent Missions of both India and Pakistan will together work out the details. Till then, what will be discussed in the meeting, we will have to wait till the meeting takes place,” said External Affairs Ministry (MEA) official spokesperson Raveesh Kumar at the weekly briefing today.
“I can confirm that on the request from the Pakistani side a meeting between the two foreign ministers will take place on the sidelines of the UNGA at a mutually convenient date and time,” he added.
The decision to have this meeting on the sideline of UNGA was taken at the CCS meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. The spokesman clarified that the meeting is not resumption of dialogue process in response to a question.
The decision to have a meeting follows a letter written by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking resumption of dialogue and suggesting a meeting between the two foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UNGA, and a letter written by Qureshi to Sushma Swaraj.
Though the details of the talks are still in the process of being finalised, the matter on Kartarpur Saheb will be taken up when the foreign ministers of the two countries will meet later this month.
The last time both countries had a substantive dialogue was way back in December 2015, when Sushma Swaraj had gone to Pakistan to attend the Heart of Asia conference.