Menon will meet Bashir in Egypt

It is now confirmed that foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and Pakistan’s Salman Bashir will meet in Egypt during the non-aligned summit next month. The two senior officials will be in the resort town of Sharm-El-Sheik by July 11, much ahead of the summit on the 15th and 16th.

The dates have so far not been announced officially, but senior Indian and Pakistani diplomats confirmed in private that the foreign secretaries will meet in Egypt ahead of the summit. The meeting between Menon and Bashir will be an attempt to revive the peace talks, which India called off after the Mumbai terror attack last November.

Speaking in New Delhi on Monday, minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor spelt out India’s terms for renewing the composite dialogue. Tharoor made the simple point that India needed an assurance from Pakistan that there would be no Mumbai-type terror strikes in future.

This implies that Islamabad must make sure that anti-India terror outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba or the Jaish-e-Mohammed are not encouraged by the military establishment or the ISI to hit at soft targets in India. Without such an assurance, that India need not “fear” another attack, there can be no forward movement.

If Islamabad can give a commitment ahead of the meeting between prime minister Manmohan Singh and his counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani, the two leaders are likely to announce resumption of peace talks. This will be received with appreciation by the US and NATO countries, keen to keep India and Pakistan engaged.