World | Pakistan
Peace process to get new thrust with Mukherjee's visit
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee will visit Islamabad next month for a review of a four-year-old peace process, the foreign ministry said yesterday.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:28 April 10, 2008
Islamabad: Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee will visit Islamabad next month for a review of a four-year-old peace process, the foreign ministry said yesterday.
Mukherjee's May 21 visit will be the first by an Indian minister since the formation of a new government in Islamabad led by the Pakistan Peoples Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Groundwork
Foreign secretaries of the two countries will meet on May 20 to prepare the ground for talks between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Mukherjee, a brief statement from the ministry said.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, and came close to a fourth in 2002. A peace process was launched by President Pervez Musharraf and the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004.
While the relationship between the two countries has considerably improved, they have made little progress in resolving their territorial dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.
Hand of friendship
The peace process was put on a slow track over the past year as Pakistan passed through a phase of intense political turmoil, culminating in the defeat of pro-Musharraf parties in a parliamentary election two months ago.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month offered to meet the new leadership in Islamabad "halfway" to put the past behind and build a new relationship based on cooperation and enduring peace.
"I would like to assure the newly elected leadership of Pakistan that we seek good relations with Pakistan," Singh told India's parliament.
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