Indian and Pakistani PMs hold talks

16/07/2009| IslamWeb

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan have met on the sidelines of a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) in Egypt.

The meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh on Thursday was the second high-level talks between the two nations since last year's attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on a Pakistan-based group.

Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, has voiced hopes that Pakistan will act against those behind the three-day rampage by 10 armed men, which left at least 166 people dead.

In remarks clearly addressed at Pakistan on Wednesday, Singh said that the "infrastructure of terrorism" must be dismantled.

Islamabad has repeatedly refused to hand over suspected plotters of the Mumbai attacks to New Delhi. But this week Pakistan said that it would "probably" put the five accused of involvement in the attacks on trial shortly.

November's attack stalled a fragile peace process, launched in 2004, which was aimed at resolving a number of issues between the two neighbors, including the dispute over the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

'Forward movement'

Speaking to delegates at the summit on Wednesday, Yusuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, expressed some optimism over the direction that relations between the two nuclear powers were taking.

"There has recently been some forward movement in our relations with India," he said.

"We hope to sustain this momentum and move towards comprehensive engagement. We believe durable peace in South Asia is achievable."

Shiv Shankar Menon, the Indian foreign secretary, has been holding talks with Salim Bashir, his Pakistani counterpart, since Tuesday in preparation for the meeting between Singh and Gilani.

"We have had good detailed discussions. We are still in the process of talking to each other," Menon said on Wednesday.

The two nations have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, since they were separated in 1947 following the end of colonial British rule.

More than 50 heads of state from the developing world are in Sharm el-Sheikh for the summit which was called to tackle the impact of the global economic downturn.

"Every country in the world must seek just solutions to the global economic crisis," Raul Castro, the Cuban president, told the 118-member body on Wednesday.

"We call for a new monetary and economic world order... we must restructure the world financial system to take into consideration the needs of developing countries."

India said the body's members needed to play a bigger role on the world stage.

"Developing countries must be fully represented in the decision-making levels of international institutions," Singh said.

India, along with host Egypt, was one of the founding members of the Nam, the largest grouping of countries outside of the United Nations, which was founded in 1955 to give a voice to the developing world.

PHOTO CAPTION

The Indian (left) and Pakistani flags cross one another during the daily retreat ceremony on the heavily guarded India-Pakistan Border at Wagah.

Al-Jazeera