The foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India will meet in the third week of coming December to review the reports of various working groups that are to meet between end-November and mid-December this year, a spokesman of Foreign Office indicated here on Monday. The foreign secretaries, he said would discuss the questions of peace and security, the two-agenda items specified for them to discuss.
The secretaries will come up with a new calendar of meetings for the remaining six agenda items assigned to the groups.
The official spokesman told newsmen that there was no occasion to be either despondent or euphoric but realistic about the dialogues.
"It is a painstaking process and requires statesmanship and vision, investment of time and energy," he added. Pakistan, he reiterated had committed itself to the success of the dialogue.
Date for the meeting of the two foreign ministers to examine the recommendations of their foreign secretaries is under negotiations and either may be held immediately after the secretarial meetings or early in the New Year.
Besides reopening of rail and bus routes in the north and south, the groups of experts are to also take up trade-related issues, demarcation of marine boundary in the Arabian Sea, the nuclear and convention CBMs, the Wullar Barrage and above all, the question of Kashmir.
A general review of the dialogue may also take place if the dates for the visit of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to India and several other nations of the Saarc as the current chairman of the association are finalised. It may occur in November but the agreement on the announcement of dates had not reached yet.
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