Thursday, June 3, 2010

Pak visit will help eliminate trust deficit: Krishna

Updated on Thursday, June 03, 2010, 18:07 IST

Washington: External Affairs Minister S M Krishna feels his planned visit to Pakistan next month will help eliminate the "trust deficit" between the two neighbours.

Krishna, who is here to co-chair the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, said India was trying to build bridges with Pakistan.

"We are trying to build bridges with Pakistan also.. We are hoping to to eliminate the trust deficit," he told reporters at a reception hosted by Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar in his honour.
"High level visits are a very important part of trying to do that," he said.

Krishna would visit Islamabad on July 15 to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. The two leaders would discuss terrorism and bilateral issues, including Kashmir.

India had put the Composite Dialogue process with Pakistan on hold since the Mumbai attacks. In April, the countries decided to resume dialogue at the level of Foreign Ministers and Foreign Secretaries.

Prior to Krishna's visit, Home Minister P Chidambaram would be in Islamabad later this month to attend the SAARC Home Ministers meeting and would talks with his counterpart Rehman Malik. He is likely to get an update on Pakistan's probe into Mumbai attacks.
On the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, Krishna said there are many commonalities between the two countries and they are joining hands together to enlarge the area of peace, understanding and strategic partnership.

"I think the commonalties between our two countries: we are democracies, we respect the due process of the law, we respect human right, we are pluralistic societies," he said.

"So when there are so many commonalities and we join hands together further to enlarge the area of peace, understanding and strategic partnerships of the kind that I am hoping we will be able to build with the US it will be great for the world," Krishna said.

PTI


Why are we so obsessed with Pakistan? Pakistan was an idea that led to the partition of India. Today Pakistan is the fount of all anti-India activities taking place in India. Are we still naive enough to suppose that Pakistan means us well? We should declare Pakistan a terrorist state and declare a state of perpetual war with it. We should treat all those who are Pakistan's friends as our enemies. This should be the only basis of our foreign policy. Even after partition we remain a nation of continental proportions, if not in size at least in terms of history, legacy and potential. Let us not bother about pleasing any nation. We can survive on our own. We have, to regain our self-confidence and sense of purpose, declare India as Hindu Rashtra.

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