India-Pakistan to resume dialogue ‘on all issues’
By IANSThursday, February 10, 2011
NEW DELHI - India and Pakistan have agreed to resume dialogue on all issues following a meeting of their foreign secretaries in Bhutan, the Indian government said Thursday, stopping short of terming it composite dialogue.
The Pakistani foreign minister will visit India by July this year, it was announced.
A press release on the “Agreed Outcome issued Thursday by the external affairs ministry listed four decisions taken at Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s meeting with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir in Thimphu Sunday night.
The first listed decision is that both sides have agreed to resume dialogue on all issues following the spirit of the Thimphu meeting between the two prime ministers.
The Pakistani foreign minister will visit India by July 2011 “to review progress in the dialogue process with his counterpart”, said the note.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani met on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Bhutan in April 2010.
Composite dialogue between the two countries was suspended following the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack, which India blamed on Pakistan. India has been urging Pakistan to bring the masterminds of the attack to trial.
