India ready to discuss ‘all issues’ with Pakistan: Rao

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

* Indian foreign secretary calls for ‘ameliorative action’ against terrorism directed at India

* Says New Delhi wants to create economic environment with neighbours

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: India is prepared to “discuss all outstanding issues” with Pakistan, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, but it has to take “ameliorative action” to eradicate terrorism directed against the country, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said on Monday.

“The issue of Jammu and Kashmir comes up in our relationship with Pakistan and we’ve said very clearly, very confidently and very transparently that we are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues with Pakistan,” Rao said in Boston on Monday. Noting that India’s relationship with Pakistan had been “complicated” due to terrorism, Rao said “terror groups implacably opposed to India continue to recruit, train and plot attacks from safe havens across our borders”. She stressed “the need for Pakistan to take ameliorative action to eradicate terrorism against India.”

The foreign secretary made these comments just before a likely meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the forthcoming UN General Assembly’s annual meeting in New York. Rao, who was delivering a lecture at the Harvard University, said, “We understand well the Kautilyan advice that a great power loses stature if it remains bogged down in neighbourhood entanglements.”

She said India wanted to create an economic environment with its neighbours since a peaceful neighbourhood is mandatory for the “realisation of our own vision of economic growth”. She added that India wanted to “persevere in our dialogue with Pakistan to resolve outstanding issues so that our region will be stable”.

Rao said India wanted to discuss all outstanding issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. She, however, reiterated traditional Indian stance that Kashmir was its internal matter. “It is an internal affair because it (Kashmir) is an integral part of India.” Referring to the Mumbai attacks, Rao said it was an issue that India wanted to talk to Pakistan about. She said Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik was in touch with the Indian Home Ministry about the Mumbai trials.

The foreign secretary asserted that India’s vision for development in South Asia through enhanced cooperaiton was challenged by violent extremism and terrorism which originates in “our region and finds sustenance and sanctuary there”.