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| India-Pakistan |
| Spat erupts at Indo-Pak peace talks briefing |
| 2010-07-16 |
| ISLAMABAD: The foreign ministers' meetings between India and Pakistan all but collapsed in a welter of accusations on Thursday. Pakistan steadfastly refused to engage in any substantial manner with the critical areas of Mumbai attacks, cross-border terrorism and infiltration, choosing to argue that Islamabad could not speed "judicial" processes. The joint press conference, which started around 9pm, instead of the scheduled 2.15 pm, saw foreign minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi take on each other in what turned out to be a bruising spat beamed live. The divergence came out starkly on Balochistan and infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir as the interaction with the media almost degenerated into a joust. Asked about India's "role" in Balochistan, Krishna responded, "Forget about credible evidence, we have not received a shred of evidence". On the issue of anti-India jihad speeches of Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, Qureshi actually offered home secretary G K Pillai's comments on Lashkar man David Headley's implication of ISI as a "counter-point". The equation of the mild-mannered Pillai as an equivalent to the Lashkar amir left the Indian delegation gaping. Qureshi further said Pillai's statement had come up in discussions and "both of us felt it was unwarranted". Krishna did not respond to this sally. But Qureshi's reference to Pillai as a Hafiz Saeed "clone" more or less symbolized the near futility of the engagement that was to take forward home minister P Chidambaram's discussions just last month. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 A pity we're not openly allied with India against this BS, made-up non-nation. And containing China on its western flank, while we're at it. |
| Posted by: lex 2010-07-16 10:21 |