Bangalore, July 19 (ANI): External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna on Thursday said he would be visiting Pakistan in the second week of September.
"I think this would be further strengthening the bilateral relationship, which is improving by the day. And I will be visiting Islamabad, Pakistan, sometime beginning at the second week of September," he told mediapersons here.
Emphasizing the need to promote greater trust and mutual understanding through constructive dialogue, Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan earlier this month reiterated their respective governments' desire to carry forward the dialogue process in a purposeful and result-oriented manner.
Foreign Secretaries of the two nations Ranjan Mathai and Jalil Abbas Jilani also reviewed the ongoing implementation of the already adopted Nuclear and Conventional CBMs.
Mathai and Jilani had a comprehensive exchange of views on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and agreed to continue discussions in a purposeful and forward looking manner with the view to finding a peaceful solution by narrowing divergences and building convergences.
Both sides recognized the need to strengthen the existing Cross-LoC CBMs for streamlining the arrangements to facilitate travel and trade across LOC.
Both sides underlined the importance of greater people to people contacts and friendly exchanges in building a relationship of trust and friendship between the two countries. They noted that the text of a revised bilateral visa agreement has already been finalized and decided to work for its early signing.
They emphasized the importance of greater parliamentary exchanges; promotion of cooperation in various fields including facilitating visits to religious shrines and cessation of hostile propaganda against each other.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had earlier this month said the menace of terrorism continues to be a major concern for both New Delhi and Islamabad, and added that the two neighbouring nations need to look at it as regional players and share information with each other as part of trust building measure to be able to tackle the threat.
Khar, who was in the Cambodian capital to attend the ASEAN Ministerial meeting, emphasized that it is Pakistan, which suffers the most because of the menace of terrorism.
India had earlier stepped up pressure on Pakistan to take action against Mumbai terror attack accused.
At a meeting held on the sidelines of the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan earlier, Krishna stressed that the normalisation of bilateral ties can, 'only be in an atmosphere free of terror', thereby underscoring the need for creation of the right ambience.
Krishna's comments came in the wake of disclosures by 26/11 handler Abu Jundal.
Abu Jundal was arrested on his arrival from Saudi Arabia at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport by Delhi Police on June 21.
He is presently in the custody of the Delhi Police Special Cell.
According to reports, Jundal has admitted his active role in the 26/11 attack, saying he had worked in tandem with terror mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
He has during his interrogation confessed his role in the country's worst terror attack and admitted that he was present in the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) control room in Karachi from where direction was being given to the 10 terrorists who carried out the strike. (ANI)
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