Conducive atmosphere before PMs meet: Khurshid

Pakistan informed India that it has named a new prosecutor for the delayed 2008 Mumbai terror attack trial.;

with talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif scheduled for later this month in New York,India on Friday underlined that a conducive atmosphere was essential for the meeting.

Pakistan informed India that it has named a new prosecutor for the delayed 2008 Mumbai terror attack trial and will send a judicial commission on September 23 to cross-examine key Indian witnesses,meeting New Delhis demand for progress in the probe to an extent.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Friday said Sartaj Aziz,Advisor to the Pakistani Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs,informed him about these developments during an informal chat in the Kyrgyzstan capital,where they are attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit.

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Aziz said he had a good meeting with Khurshid and diplomatic channels will continue to facilitate talks between the two PMs on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

We expected and hoped that the prosecutor would be appointed soon the previous prosecutor was assassinated and that the evidence collected by the judicial commission can be made available to the (Pakistani) trial court, Khurshid said.

We genuinely hope that now things can proceed faster and that we would see through court proceedings something substantive happening, Khurshid said. We told him (Aziz) that in view of the wish of the people for positive talks,there has to be a conducive atmosphere.

Last Saturday,Singh said he will have to factor in certain harsh realities relating to terrorism and progress in the Mumbai attack probe before arriving at a final decision on meeting Sharif.

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Khurshid also stressed on the need for peace on the Indo-Pak border,and said the ceasefire on the Line of Control must be respected.