New Delhi
19 October 2010
India has blamed "Pakistan's overreach" for the failure of their foreign minister-
level talks in July.
"Our efforts to bridge the trust deficit and pave the way for a serious and comprehensive
dialogue were thwarted by a level of overreach by Pakistan that complicated the
resumption of a sustained dialogue process," foreign secretary Nirupama Rao said here
Tuesday at a seminar on Pakistan organised by Jamia Millia Islamia university.
She was referring to the July 15 talks between external affairs minister SM Krishna and
his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
Ms Rao defended India's incremental approach towards dialogue with Pakistan saying
that it was not directed at avoiding sensitive issues.
She said: "India's advocacy of an incremental, graduated and forward-looking approach
that seeks to address the deficit of trust is by no means an attempt to avoid tackling of
the substantive differences that trouble relations with Pakistan.
"While there can be no guarantees for success, such an approach seeks to build first on
what is achievable and simultaneously to also address the more intractable issues in a
sustained manner".
The foreign secretary iterated that "the issue of terrorism arising out of the sub-
conventional conflict directed by Pakistan against India for over two decades now,
cannot be ignored either. It is as substantive an issue as the issue of Jammu and
Kashmir, or the issue of the Siachen glacier."
The Pakistani foreign minister is likely to visit India in the first quarter of 2011.
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