Foreign Secretary Gokhale to brief parliamentary panel on Indo-Pak relations

Foreign Secretary Vijay Keshav Gokhale will brief a parliamentary panel on Indo-Pak relations later this week.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs headed by senior party leader Shashi Tharoor.

The committee has called the foreign secretary to brief it on the relations between India and Pakistan in view of the new regime in the neighbouring country.

Gokhale will brief the panel on October 26.

This will be the panel's first meeting on the relations between the two Asian neighbours after cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan became Pakistan's Prime Minister.

After the new regime assumed power in Pakistan, the panel members want to know and understand where the relations between the two countries stand and in which direction it is moving, sources in the committee said.

Panel members are keen to have a comprehensive discussion on the relations between the two countries as it is important for national security, the sources added.

Prior to this, the panel had been briefed on another sensitive issue -- the Doklam stand-off between India and China.

A series of meetings were held by the committee where both the current foreign secretary Gokhlae and his predecessor S Jaishankar appeared before the panel and briefed it on the stand-off.