The Hindu : National : Pakistan offers dates for nuclear talks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 06, 2004

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Pakistan offers dates for nuclear talks

By Our Diplomatic Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. India today confirmed that Pakistan had offered to hold talks on May 25 and 26 between experts of the two countries to discuss nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) as envisaged in the joint statement issued by the Foreign Secretaries on February 18.

"We have received the dates in the second half of May and we would respond," the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman told presspersons today. The venue of the talks — New Delhi or Islamabad — is yet to be agreed upon.

The February 18 statement envisages that experts from the two countries would discuss nuclear CBMs in the "latter half" of May 2004. This statement itself flows from a memorandum of understanding reached by the Foreign Secretaries in February 1999 during the visit of the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to Lahore.

"The two sides shall engage in bilateral consultations on security concepts, and nuclear doctrines, with a view to developing measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflict," the MoU said. Talks were, however, not held as per the agreed framework due to the Kargil war. The May talks will be the first-ever to be held under the terms of the Lahore MoU.

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