Pakistan today urged India to fix early dates for foreign secretary-level talks to discuss peace and security and the Kashmir issue, and said the new Indian leadership should ensure some restraint in its rhetoric to avoid controversies in the peace process.
Pakistan also looked forward to New Delhi fixing early dates for discuss the issue continental ballistic missiles, foreign office spokesperson Masood Khan said while responding to questions from the local media.
Khan said New Delhi had sent out no negative signals, suggesting that there were no doubts about the road map for peace.
Both countries had earlier agreed to hold the talks in May/June but the dates are yet to be fixed due to the change of government in India.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, in a statement upon return from US, urged the new Indian leadership to observe "RRR [rhethoric restraint regime]" to any misunderstanding and advised it not to conduct diplomacy through the media.
"This restraint worked well in the recent past and should work after the transition of the government of India," he said.
Kasuri, who had a telephone talk with Natwar Singh a few days ago, said he appreciated positive statements made by the new Indian leadership that boded well for the peace process.
"In fact I had a very cordial telephone conversation with Natwar Singh. The constructive manner in which we had the conversation should define the parameters of our engagement," he said.
He expressed his reservations about statements made by various Indian leaders suggesting that the line of control be declared a permanent border, that there be no plebiscite in Kashmir, that relations would be guided by the Shimla Agreement and that India-Pak relations be based on the Sino-Indian model.
He said the solution to make LOC a permanent border was not acceptable to Pakistan.
"The status quo is part of the problem and not part of the solution. The unresolved status of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute has pushed us to three wars, in addition to three minor ones and might well have triggered a wider and more sinister war between the two countries in 2002 if diplomacy, realism and common sense had not prevailed," he said.
Kasuri said he was satisfied with the current Indian leadership's promise to abide by the January 6 joint statement issued by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad. The two leaders had then expressed their commitment to resumption of the composite dialogue process.
Reacting to Singh's view that the Shimla Accord formed the basis for future talks, Kasuri said that if the Shimla Agreement was being brought up to help find solutions, Pakistan had no complaints. But if it was being invoked to freeze the Kashmir issue, durable peace could not be ensured in South Asia. Kasuri said agreements made over the years could not be selectively invoked to "shelve pressing problems". He said India and Pakistan could not find lasting peace without addressing the Kashmir issue.
"If one agreement were a panacea, we would have resolved all our problems long ago. Our object is to transcend the past by resolving the issue... We must use statesmanship to resolve all issues. And I believe we are in the process of doing that," he said.
Kasuri said he was associated with behind-the-scenes diplomacy between India and Pakistan even before he became foreign minister.
He also felt that Singh's view that India-Pak ties should follow the Sino-Indian model was not feasible.
"China is Pakistan's closest friend and ally. Nevertheless in international politics, no two situations are identical. Taiwan is a case in point, which China handles quite differently from how it discusses its border issues with India. Hence, while Sino-Indian model may be good, there is no parallel between Sino-Indian engagement and Pakistan-India paradigm with Kashmir," he said, adding that it was judicious to avoid statements to the press on matters that called for substantive negotiations.
In his media briefing, Masood Khan said there was no "hidden plan" to resolve differences between India and Pakistan.
"All Vajpayee and Musharraf agreed in their January 6 meeting was to come with a calendar for talks to resolve Kashmir and seven other outstanding issues." He said a meeting of foreign secretaries was important because it was they who would discuss important outstanding issues.
Asked whether the change of government in India was a setback in the dialogue process, he said Pakistan was in no indecent haste on the matter. He said the delay in starting dialogue was understandable as the new government had yet to settle down and absorb the developments.
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