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Talks with India aimed at confidence-building(Gulf News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Islamabad: Pakistan and India will hold two days of talks from today on building mutual confidence in the nuclear field and minimising risk of accidental atomic conflict. This will be the fourth round of discussions on nuclear confidence building within the peace dialogue launched by the two nuclear-armed countries in January 2004. On Friday the two sides will discuss measures to promote mutual confidence in the area of conventional forces and weapons. "We will approach the talks in a very constructive manner and with a positive frame of mind," foreign ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told a media briefing. She said Pakistan had already presented several proposals and it would make further suggestions at the upcoming meeting. The third round of nuclear talks held in August last year led to the signing of an an agreement to inform each other in advance of flight testing of ballistic missiles and activation of a hot line. Aslam said Pakistan would also present a draft agreement on prevention of incidents at sea in order to ensure safety of navigation. The spokesperson said technical level discussions on operational and logistic details of Muzaffarabad-Srinagar truck service and Rawalakot-Poonchh bus service would be held in New Delhi on May 2-3. She also said that Pakistan was in touch with the Indian authorities for consular access to Pakistanis in Indian jails and to secure their release. Out of 535 Pakistanis, including 59 fishermen, the national status of 131 civilians had already been confirmed while 147 are awaiting consular access, she said. Similarly, there were 614 Indians in Pakistani prisons including 109 civilians and 505 fishermen and the national status of 300 had been confirmed and consular accessed provided, the spokesperson said. On a question about the political crisis in Nepal, she said it was internal affairs of Nepal but Pakistan was concerned over the escalation of violence and hoped that all parties would find a solution within the country's constitution. |