India's High Commissioner to Pakistan T C A Raghavan on Friday said Pakistan's repeated violation of the November 2003 cease-fire agreement with India, has proved to be a major setback to a possible resumption of the bilateral and composite dialogue process between the two countries.
Speaking to media here, Raghavan, who was on his way to New Delhi with his wife, said he was still hopeful about relations between the two countries improving.
Raghavan's comments came even as both India and Pakistan are reportedly engaged in back channel talks to facilitate a possible meeting between Prime Ministers' Nawaz Sharif and Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of this year's United Nations General Assembly Summit in New York.
Special envoys of the two countries Satinder Kumar Lambah and Shahryar Khan reportedly met in Dubai last month to discuss the modalities and agenda for the possible meeting between the two heads of government.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has met Prime Minister Sharif's Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz in Krgyzstan capital Bishkek on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting.
The possibility of a meeting between Singh and Sharif on the sidelines of the UNGA meeting figured in the course of the discussion.
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"I conveyed to him (Aziz) that a possible meeting between the prime ministers in New York, on the margins of UNGA, will require a conducive atmosphere and delivery for it to materialise," Khurshid said in a statement issued after the meeting.
Raghavan also witnessed the Beating Retreat ceremony performed by Border Security Force Guards and the Pakistani Rangers at the Attari-Wagah Checkpost.
"I found that the provoked gestures (of the BSF and the Pakistan Rangers) are much less than they used to be. But I found that the enthusiasm of the people who come there has increased," Raghavan said when questioned about an apparent hightened aggressive posturing by the guards during Friday's ceremonial.