Pak visit will help eliminate trust deficit: Krishna

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jun 3 (PTI) External Affairs Minister of
India S M Krishna feels his planned visit to Pakistan next
month will help eliminate the "trust deficit" between the two
neighbours.
Krishna, who is here to co-chair the Indo-US Strategic
Dialogue, said India was trying to build bridges with
Pakistan.
"We are trying to build bridges with Pakistan also..
We are hoping to to eliminate the trust deficit," he told
reporters at a reception hosted by Indian Ambassador Meera
Shankar in his honour.
"High level visits are a very important part of trying
to do that," he said.
Krishna would visit Islamabad on July 15 to hold talks
with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi. The two
leaders would discuss terrorism and bilateral issues,
including Kashmir.
India had put the Composite Dialogue process with
Pakistan on hold since the Mumbai attacks. In April, the
countries decided to resume dialogue at the level of Foreign
Ministers and Foreign Secretaries.
Prior to Krishna's visit, Home Minister P Chidambaram
would be in Islamabad later this month to attend the SAARC
Home Ministers meeting and would talks with his counterpart
Rehman Malik. He is likely to get an update on Pakistan's
probe into Mumbai attacks.
On the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, Krishna said there
are many commonalities between the two countries and they are
joining hands together to enlarge the area of peace,
understanding and strategic partnership.
"I think the commonalties between our two countries:
we are democracies, we respect the due process of the law, we
respect human right, we are pluralistic societies," he said.
"So when there are so many commonalities and we join
hands together further to enlarge the area of peace,
understanding and strategic partnerships of the kind that I am
hoping we will be able to build with the US it will be great
for the world," Krishna said. PTI LKJ
KAB


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