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Dialogue with Pak after new govt settles down: Khurshid

India today said the composite dialogue with Pakistan will be resumed after the new government there settles down

Salman Khurshid

Press Trust of India Srinagar
India today said the composite dialogue with Pakistan will be resumed after the new government there settles down, and pending confidence building measures between the two countries are implemented.

'It is not good that we say everything right at the outset. The atmosphere is good at the moment. Let it improve further to be conducive for talks,' External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters here.

'Let them (the new government in Pakistan) settle down and understand their job, then we can resume it. However, there are some issues on which both the government and people expect some progress, and we will get some satisfaction from it. Then things can move on smoothly from there,' he said.
 

The focus of the government, at present, is to resume sectoral dialogue, whereby progress can be made on certain issues, Khurshid said after addressing Congress workers at the PCC office here.

'Our formulation at the moment is to start a sectoral dialogue. The issues on which we can make forward movement, we will do that. There are some issues on which expecting some quick progress is not possible,' he said.

The External Affairs Minister said there are some confidence building measures which are to be implemented by both the countries to further improve the atmosphere.

'There are confidence building measures like the most favoured nation status (to India) which they had decided earlier, but has not been implemented yet and the new visa regime which we have announced and will enable travel of more people across the border is to be implemented. We can move forward one step at a time,' he said.

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First Published: Jun 28 2013 | 3:15 PM IST

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