By Muhammad Tahir
ISLAMABAD, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Top Pakistani and Indian diplomats stood together in Islamabad at the end of their two-day talks on Friday to announce that they had "very productive and constructive engagement" for the resolution of outstanding issues through peaceful, sustained and serious bilateral dialogue.
The joint statement issued by the Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao following their talks could be seen as a sign of the positive outcome of the talks as both sides used to issue a brief statement at the conclusion of the past bilateral talks. But this time the two sides not only issued a detailed joint statement but also replied to questions in a rare show of understanding.
India had suspended the composite dialogue with Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks by blaming the Pakistan-based group " Lashker-e-Taiba" (LeT) as a culprit behind the attacks. The Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, who had met on the sidelines of a regional summit in Bhutan in April 2010, had agreed to revive the official talks and had assigned the foreign secretaries to explore ways to bridge the trust deficit.
India had earlier regularly rebuffed Pakistani calls to resume a substantive dialogue, saying Islamabad has not done enough to tackle militants or bring the Mumbai attack organizers to justice. Pakistan admitted that the attacks were partly planned on its soil, but it denied any official involvement and has arrested several suspects including a leader of the LeT operations chief Zaki-ur- Rahman Lakhvi.
Sources privy to the talks told Xinhua that the Pakistani and Indian foreign secretaries originally planned to hold separate press briefings after the talks, but they changed the schedule at the last minute by holding a joint press conference as both sides felt satisfied over the talk results and a need to share something with the media.