Pakistani officials are not expecting any miracles from the talks with India beginning here today which are certain to be clouded by the Prithvi missile controversy.
A senior official said Pakistan would raise the missile issue in the June 19-23 talks between the foreign secretaries of the two nations.
The second round of the foreign secretary level talks is being held pursuant to a decision by Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers I K Gujral and Nawaz Sharif at the Male summit of the South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation (Saarc) in May.
The first round, held in New Delhi in the last week of March marking the resumption of the Indo-Pakistani dialogue after more than three years, did not produce any concrete result.
Islamabad does not expect any breakthrough in the second round either.
The session is likely to devote much time to discussing a proposal to set up joint working groups to tackle Indo-Pakistani differences on various subjects.
However, officials here say the Prithvi controversy has cast a shadow over the dialogue. Islamabad reacted strongly to the recent report in the Washington Post that New Delhi had deployed the ballistic missiles near the border of the two countries.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has sent letters to the leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council drawing their attention to the threat to his nation from the Prithvi missiles.
We want to convey to the international community who is giving a fillip to the ballistic missile race in South Asia, a senior official SAID.
Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed said the Prime Minister was keen to normalise relations with India but New Delhi had responded with the deployment of the Prithvi missiles which were aimed at Pakistan.
We should reconsider our keenness for negotiations, he said.
Pakistani newspapers too have hit out at India. The reported deployment of Prithvi missiles on Pakistans border has inflicted great damage on the carefully nurtured ambience of goodwill which was in the process of creating a fertile and conducive ground for negotiations between the officials of the two countries, The Nation said in an editorial.
Such an atmosphere does not provide an ideal backdrop for the much-trumpeted talks ... If the talks fall apart, both countries will suffer and therefore it is in their mutual interest to try and keep the process going... Perhaps a part of the Indian establishment does not want better relations, it added.
The daily cautioned the two sides against half-baked attempts (at) placating international opinion.
