But, since then, cease-fire violation on the border, which claimed the lives of security personnel, and the Pakistani envoy hobnobbing with Kashmiri separatists last August led to worsening of bilateral relations and India decided to call of peace talks with Pakistan. They merely exchanged pleasantries during the SAARC summit in Kathmandu in November last.
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Hurriyat Conference (M) Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq while alluding to the talks in his Friday sermon at Jamia Masjid here said Kashmir was a core issue between the two nations and once any forward movement takes place on the dispute all other issues would be easy to resolve.
It said India had agreed to send more evidential voice recordings against suspects held in Pakistan for their alleged roles in the attacks on Mumbai, India’s commercial hub.
According to reports, Prime Minister Modi will, during the talks, strongly raise India’s concerns on terror and the release of Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhavi with Pakistan.
“It is quite odd that Kashmir has not been part of the statement”, he said. Significantly, there was no mention of Kashmir in the joint statement or at the joint press briefing by Foreign Secretaries S Jaishankar and Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry.
Saturday, July 11, 2015, Ufa (Russia): Belying all scepticism, India and Pakistan today set into motion the process for normalisation of their relations, but not before Prime Minister Modi extracted an assurance from his Pakisatni counterpart Nawaz Sharif to expedite the trial of the culprits of the Mumbai terror attack.
Recent Indian attacks on militants across the border in Myanmar were followed by remarks by Modi’s ministers who implied such strikes could also be carried out in Pakistan, The Times of India reported.
Modi also got Sharif’s support for setting up a mechanism for facilitating religious tourism.
Modi and Sharif met while attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which is being held in the Russian city of Ufa. “Resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue is a welcome development. NSA talks on terrorism & all issues”, his tweet read. Pakistan says India has failed to give it crucial evidence, such as recordings between the attackers and their handlers. It was the first meeting between the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers in more than a year.
“On 26/11, Pakistan has accepted that the case must be expedited”.
Friday’s bilateral meeting between the two leaders was the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in May 2014, which was attended by the Pakistani prime minister.
“That is a change from the nuanced game Pakistan has played on the subject by differentiating between good and bad terrorists, he said”.
The hour-long talks came after a year of tensions, with some positive developments from the meeting.
Veteran Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani criticised the joint statement, saying unless the dialogue between the two neighbouring countries focussed on the basic problem of Kashmir, it would neither be here nor there.
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Membership potentially offers India greater access to the energy resources of Central Asia.
