Indian Foreign Secretary to arrive Pakistan on Tuesday

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and India will resume the installed process of dialogue here on March 3 when the Indian Foreign Secretary Jaishankar will arrive here on two day visit to Islamabad.

Pakistan expects that all matters would on the table for discussion including Jammu Kashmir dispute, Siachin, water issues, confidence building measures, people to people contacts and trade matters when two foreign secretaries will meet here on Tuesday. Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyan Jaishankar, who is due on March 3 for a two-day visit to Pakistan will meet his counterpart Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry to discuss all the issues, matters and disputes. The Indian foreign secretary is visiting Pakistan in pursuant to the call of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on February 13.

Pakistan has repeatedly said that Jammu Kashmir is on the UN Security Council agenda and in the Simla Agreement, the two countries reaffirmed their commitment to the UN Charter principles. Although the visit of Indian foreign secretary to Islamabad on March 3 is part of his trip to member states of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), but he will discuss all the issues between the two countries, said an official of Foreign Office. Besides holding formal talks with Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Jaishankar is also expected to meet with Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, and Special Assistant to Prime Minister Tariq Fatemi. He is also likely to call on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It will be Jaishankar’s first visit to Pakistan.

The visit is taking place seven months after India called off foreign secretary-level talks scheduled in August last year at the eleventh hour when the Pakistan High Commissioner in New Delhi held consultations with Kashmiri leaders in the run-up to those talks