Pakistan has rejected the impression that political instability within the country is taking away the pace of the peace talks with India, but admits lack of substantial progress on the core dispute of Kashmir.
"There is no slowing down in the dialogue (with India)...there is no instability in Pakistan. It is just a political activity because it is an election year," Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told the weekly briefing here on Monday. "What has not happened the way we like it is a forward movement on the core issue (of Kashmir)."
The spokeswoman said that both countries had been able to create a situation that provided a launching pad to resolve critical issues. "What we (Pakistan and India) need to do now is to take advantage of improved environment (to resolve Kashmir)," Tasnim said.
AGREEMENT:
Pakistan and India may sign, in talks planned later this month, an agreement to return each other's citizens who strayed across the border mistakenly, the spokeswoman said. "The agreement is ready and would be put before the authorities," she added.
Officials from both countries are scheduled to meet in New Delhi on October 22 to look into how they can cooperate with each other to eliminate terrorism from the region.
Talks are also planned to be held on nuclear and conventional confidence building measures (CBMs) on October 19 and 18 respectively. Pakistan has already protested to an Indian plan to open the disputed Siachen glacier for tourism and said would again raise the issue in talks.
Tasnim said that Pakistan had received almost all of $5.7 billion international community pledged for reconstruction activities in the areas destroyed by earthquake on October 8, 2005. Of this, $2.5 billion was in grant and $3.1 billion as soft loan, she told the media.
But she added that the focus of the international community on these areas was quickly shifted due to other crises, a thing which must not have happened. She said that President General Musharraf had received a few messages of facilitation, but refused to disclose from where.