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Saturday, April 11, 1998

Sharif, Vajpayee may meet in Colombo

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA  
ISLAMABAD, April 10: Pakistan Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan has hinted at a possible meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart, Atal Behari Vajpayee, during the SAARC summit at Colombo in mid July, but ruled out any possibility of official talks before that.

During the SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Colombo on July 15 on the occasion of golden jubilee celebrations of Sri Lankan independence, all the heads of states are expected to take part. ``On that occasion perhaps Vajpayee and Sharif or the Pakistani president will meet there,'' Khan told Voice of America on Thursday.

When asked about the possibility of resumption of official level talks, he said, ``Any meeting is not expected to be held before that''.

The Pakistan Foreign Minister also expressed his apprehensions about Vajpayee's recent statement in Parliament that New Delhi was ready for dialogue but after keeping Kashmir aside.

``It is not an encouraging thing. It is yet to be seen how the coalitiongovernment of India consisting of 12-13 parties tries to settle down the matters and what would be their future strategy of talks,'' Khan said.

He further said the Pakistani Prime Minister in his congratulatory message to the Indian premier had also urged him to resume the stalled dialogue with a discussion on Kashmir and that Vajpayee had also replied to that.

The Indo-Pak dialogue process had been stalled since September last year after differences emerged between the two sides over the contentious Kashmir issue.

Incidentally during the SAARC summit in Male in May 1997, the then prime minister I K Gujral and Sharif had held the Indo-Pak summit. The dialogue process had moved with encouraging speed after that as both sides went on to identify the outstanding issues between the two countries during the foreign secretary-level talks in June last year in Islamabad.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.



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