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| | GEO Pakistan | | Premier Gilani says peace with India 'achievable' | Updated at: 0100 PST, Thursday, July 16, 2009
 SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said Wednesday that relations with India were on the right track and that peace between the arch-foes was "achievable."
Premier was addressing participants at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh ahead of a key meeting on Thursday with Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.
"There has recently been some forward movement in our relations with India," Gilani told participants.
"We hope to sustain this momentum and move towards comprehensive engagement. We believe durable peace in South Asia is achievable," he said.
Peace "will be facilitated by the resolution of all outstanding disputes, including Jammu and Kashmir," Gilani said.
New Delhi and Islamabad's fraught relations worsened after last year's bombings in the Indian commercial capital Mumbai, which killed 166 people.
The attacks were blamed by India on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Singh has voiced hope that Pakistan will promise action against those behind the attacks when he meets Gilani for the second high-level contact between the two sides since the Mumbai raids in November.
The Mumbai attacks left in tatters a fragile peace process launched in 2004 to resolve all outstanding issues of conflict between the neighbours, including a territorial dispute over the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
Foreign ministry officials from India and Pakistan have been meeting since Tuesday in Sharm el-Sheikh ahead of the talks between the two prime ministers.
The head of the Indian delegation, foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, told a press conference Wednesday night that talks with the Pakistani team were still continuing.
"We have had good detailed discussions. We are still in the process of talking to each other," he said.
Menon said Pakistan had given India a dossier on its investigations into the Mumbai attacks.
India, he said, wants "credible action to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice and credible actions to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan."
Asked what action New Delhi expected of Islamabad, he said, "We are not in business of laying down markers. When we see credible action it speaks for itself." |  |
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