Indian foreign minister to visit Pakistan in July

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi made the invitation to his Indian counterpart SM Krishna during a telephone conversation on Tuesday. The Indian foreign minister later told a news conference in New Delhi that he had accepted the invitation to visit Pakistan and was "looking forward to the talks".

The meeting will take place on July 15. "Let us hope that these talks will be helpful in bringing our two countries closer together and let's hope that our efforts will be fruitful," Krishna said.

'No quick fixes'

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Qureshi also held a news conference in Islamabad. He said the two sides were going into the talks with an open mind and positive approach.

He told reporters that the July 15 meeting would touch on the whole range of issues, but he warned against 'expecting miracles'. "There are no quick fixes, but sincerity is there," he said. Qureshi also said the upcoming meeting would be followed by a visit to New Delhi for another round of talks.

India suspended the five-year old composite dialogue with Pakistan after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed. New Delhi blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group for being behind the attacks.

The two sides resumed contact with a meeting of their foreign secretaries in New Delhi in February, but little emerged from that meeting. The Indians remained insistent that full dialogue would resume only when Pakistan brought the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice.

Thaw in ties

The relaxation of tensions in Indo-Pakistan ties came only recently, when the prime ministers of the two countries met on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Bhutan's capital Thimphu on April 29.

During the meeting Indian Prime minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed that relations between their countries should be normalized and that the dialogue was the only way forward.

Ahead of the foreign ministers' talks, India's Home Minister is due to visit Islamabad on June 26. P Chidambaram will attend a meeting of the Interior Ministers of the South Asian region.

Last week, a special court in Mumbai sentenced the lone surviving gunman of the 2008 attacks to death. Ajmal Amir Kasab, a Pakistani national, was found guilty of waging war on India, mass murder, conspiracy and terrorism offences.

du/AFP/dpa/AP/Reuters
Editor: Grahame Lucas