New Delhi:
After more than two years, India and Pakistan today announced the resumption of talks in several areas including terror, Kashmir and trade. However, neither side is calling it the composite dialogue that existed before 26/11. Pakistan's Foreign Minister will come to India by July. In an exclusive interview to NDTV's Nidhi Razdan, India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao discusses the new progress.
Ms Rao met with her Pakistani counterpart - Salman Bashir - over the weekend on the sidelines of a SAARC summit in Bhutan.
NDTV: What has changed in the last few months for you to have taken this decision - because we have been saying for a long time that any such dialogue with Pakistan depended on what they did on the issue of terrorism. So do you feel satisfied enough for us to be able to take this plunge?
Rao: Well, Nidhi, you have to look at it this way. I think there was always this political will, the intention on the part of the Government of India to see this dialogue being taken forward with Pakistan... because we have always said that dialogue was the only option and I am not merely articulating a cliche here, this is much more than that. This is an expression of political will, the desire to intensify the process of dialogue with Pakistan. We have held it in both sides in abeyance for far too long. I don't think it has created returns for either of us. I think it is a very pragmatic decision...
NDTV: You used a very important word there - pragmatic - and ma'am you are not calling it a composite dialogue. You have said many times in the last few months that you don't want to get bogged down by nomenclature by labelling this dialogue this way. But effectively when you look at the kind of exchanges you have announced today, does it effectively amount to the same thing even if it is not called that?
Rao: As I said, we are not prisoners of nomenclature and we are looking at a serious dialogue, a sustained dialogue, a comprehensive dialogue.
NDTV: And is terror going to be the key focus of how India approaches this, or you are just looking at these issues separately now?
Rao: I think the subject is terrorism and counter terrorism, core concerns for India and what I understood from the Pakistan Foreign Secretary during our talks in Thimphu, was also that it is a matter of deep and serious concerns for Pakistan.
NDTV: And therefore you felt that there is a shift in their position and that you feel more positive today than you felt maybe six months ago when a meeting between the two Foreign Ministers couldn't even take place in New York?
Rao: As I said, I am cautiously optimistic, I said that before. We made an honest and genuine effort last year. We met - the two Foreign Secretaries - in Delhi in February. Thereafter a meeting in Islamabad... I think that was a positive meeting and then the Foreign Ministers met in July and we had a discussion on many of these issues even at the July meeting of the Foreign Ministers. However, we were not able to reach any satisfactory outcome from that meeting. But please remember that the 2 Prime Ministers - the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan - met in April in Thimphu during the SAARC summit and it was as a result of their bilateral meeting, very important meeting, that a decision was taken to seriously look at how we could reduce the trust deficit between the two countries and intensify dialogue.
NDTV: And so you feel that India's position also evolved then accordingly?
Rao: Well, India's position is always evolving in terms of the reality that surrounds us and I think the reality is that India and Pakistan cannot afford to turn their backs to each other, that they must engage in dialogue, which is as I said serious and sustainable and comprehensive. And we are therefore satisfied with the outcome of the Thimphu meeting that took place between the two Foreign Secretaries.