Islamabad puts on hold new visa regime with India

First session of talks between Pakistan and India concluded fruitlessly on Friday without any decision about much awaited liberalized and soft visa agreement between the two neighbors.

Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik while speaking to the media said Islamabad had taken a firm decision to liberalize visa regime with India. He, however, said the agreement should be finalized on political level.

Indian delegation headed by Home Secretary RK Singh held a meeting with Rehman Malik after holding formal talks with Pakistani counterpart Khawja Siddique Akbar. Both Islamabad and New Delhi had exchanged dossiers on terrorism-related issues, the minister added.

He confirmed that India provided addition evidence against Hafiz Saeed to Pakistan, saying they would examine the dossier before taking any action. The issue of India’s alleged interference in Balochistan also had been discussed and Pakistan will provide evidence to India in this regard, he added.

Malik was of the opinion the two neighboring countries should give up the blame-game and work together to fight against terrorism and betterment of the masses.

In his view, nobody can be termed guilty before the completion of investigation as the people accused of conducting Mumbai carnage were undergoing trial and the decision of the court was yet to announce.

Replying to a question about Mumbai attacks, the minister said they hadn’t analyzed and checked authenticity of evidence provided by India, adding that Islamabad had also rely on its own findings.

He confirmed involvement of Indian intelligence agency RAW in the Samjhota Express incident, saying put blame on Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was totally wrong.

An India daily quoting sources claimed that Pakistan had wanted the visa agreement to be signed by Interior Minister Malik and his Indian counterpart P Chidambaram. However, India rejected the proposal because its home minister was not supposed to visit Pakistan, it added.

The report claimed, “Islamabad requested Chidambaram’s presence for few hours to sign the agreement but the Indian home minister declined to be part of the delegation”.

Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai informed the media that the visa agreement was to be signed during the home secretary talks as per the decision taken during discussions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari in April.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on May 26 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.