A two-day meeting of retired Indian and Pakistani diplomats and military officials in Kathmandu on Saturday called for reducing tension along border areas and exchange of civil delegations as part of furthering confidence building measures between the two countries.
At the end of the two-day meet, the participants adopted a ten-point resolution suggesting more dialogue on government and non-governmental level and relaxing visa procedures.
"The meeting, first of its kind after December 13, 2001, has been useful in opening dialogue between the two countries at an unofficial level," military analyst General (retd) Ashok Mehta said. "This has created some sort of environment for studying each other's viewpoint and we have understood each other with greater clarity."
The meeting debated issues like cost of the Indo-Pak confrontation, coercive diplomacy, repercussions on South Asia of the war in Afghanistan and military dimension of the Indo-Pak standoff.
Twenty-five participants from India, Pakistan and Nepal, including former diplomat Satinder Lamba, former Pakistani foreign ministers Inam ul Haque and Sartaz Aziz besides senior Indian journalists, attended the meeting.
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