Pakistan wants to normalise relations with India, says Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan wants to normalise its relations with India on the basis of "sovereign equality and mutual respect" and the two countries should go back to a structured dialogue process as this is the only way forward, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Monday. Qureshi briefed a group of former foreign secretaries and ambassadors at the Foreign Office about "Pakistan's incipled position vis-a-vis India", an official statement said. He exchanged views with them on key foreign policy issues, including relations with India, the recent US-Pakistan strategic dialogue and the upcoming Pakistan-EU summit. Qureshi stressed that "Pakistan genuinely wanted to normalise its relations with India on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect". Qureshi said: "It was necessary that our two countries reverted back to a meaningful and structured dialogue process as this was the only way forward." In the first official contact between the two countries since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan met in New Delhi on February 25. Since then, Pakistan has been pushing for the resumption of the stalled composite dialogue. India has said it favours a step-by-step approach to normalising ties. The former foreign secretaries and ambassadors said the composite dialogue between Pakistan and India had produced "good results". They said it was in the interest of both countries to "resume result-oriented dialogue and sooner the better". Qureshi briefed the group on the outcome of the Pakistan-US strategic dialogue held in Washington during March 24-25. He said a "significant process had begun towards moving the bilateral relationship from transactional to strategic partnership" between the two countries. Pakistan and the US had agreed to develop multifaceted ties on the basis of "mutual interest, mutual respect and mutual trust". Referring to the upcoming Pakistan-EU summit to be held in Brussels next month, Qureshi said Pakistan the meeting will provide a useful opportunity to further strengthen engagement and interaction with the European Union. The former diplomats said Pakistan's relations with the US were important and the government's efforts to evolve a strategic partnership were in the right direction. Among those attended the meeting were Abdul Sattar, Akram Zaki, Humayun Khan, Tanvir Ahmad Khan, Najmuddin Shaikh, Shahryar Khan, Riaz Muhammad Khan, Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, Aziz Ahmed Khan and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.