The sources said that there was scant possibility of talks between the two Foreign Secretaries being held as per schedule in the wake of the serial blasts in Mumbai.
New Delhi
India is likely to call off the foreign secretary-level meeting with Pakistan scheduled for next week following the serial blasts in Mumbai, which killed 179 people.
Though no formal announcement has been made, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters on Friday that “co-operation is a two-way street. India will do what it has to do.”
Top government sources said holding the next round of talks would send out a signal of business as usual despite the strikes. “It is best not to entertain Pakistan’s foreign secretary now,” an Indian official said on condition of anonymity.
In the usual manner of official doublespeak, the government has come up with the explanation that as the dates were not formally announced for the talks, there is no question of pulling out. But in simultaneous statements released in Delhi and Islamabad on March 6, the entire schedule for discussions was given to reporters.
Shyam Saran was to meet his Pakistani counterpart on July 20, followed by the foreign ministers on July 22.
But New Delhi’s insistence that it has not called off the talks is also a signal that the peace process is not off track completely. New Delhi is aware that the international community is keen that the two nuclear neighbours continue with their present engagement.
The US state department stressed the point in Washington on Friday.
President Pervez Musharraf’s interview to a Pakistani TV channel that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was in the know of the Kargil incursions helped the Indian establishment to make up its mind. Musharraf, who was then the army chief, has for the first time acknowledged that his men were involved in the incursions. Till now Islamabad had insisted that the intruders were mujahideen fighting to reclaim their land.
“Pakistan was talking peace and preparing for war, what guarantee that they are not doing the same now?” one official said.
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