Foreign, Home Secretaries meet

New Delhi, Jul 23 (PTI) Indian Foreign Secretary
Nirupama Rao has met Union Home Secretary G K Pillai against
the backdrop of apparent differences between the Ministry of
External Affairs (MEA) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in
connection with the Indo-Pak talks.
Rao met Pillai Thursday and is understood to have
briefed him about the recent talks between External Affairs
Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart S M
Qureshi.
The meeting is being seen in many quarters as an
effort by Rao to break the apparent communication gap in the
aftermath of the July 15 talks between the two countries.
A controversy had erupted after Pillai had made a
remark about involvement of ISI in Mumbai terror attacks ahead
of the talks, a matter which was taken up by the Pakistani
side with its Foreign Minister saying that Pillai's remarks
were uncalled for, and tried to equate them to hate speeches
by JuD leader Hafiz Saeed.
Disapproving the comments made by Pillai on the eve of
Indo-Pak talks, Krishna had said that the timing of the
remarks was "very unfortunate."
Krishna had said if he was the Home Secretary, he
woul not have spoken about the details of the
Pakistani-American David Headley revelations.
Factually, Pillai was "very much in order" in speaking
about the disclosures made by Headley to FBI and Indian
interrogators but "the timing was something which was very
unfortunate," Krishna had said.
The Minister said that he discussed Pillai's comments
with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whom he had briefed on his
parleys with his Pakistani counterpart and other leaders.
He insisted that the government was speaking in one voice
on Pakistan and said he was "glad" that Home Ministry has now
announced the appointment of a spokesperson. In recent months,
Pillai has been briefing the media.
However, he dismissed as "ridiculous" the comparison
sought to be drawn by Qureshi between JuD chief's anti-India
statement and Pillai's remarks on ISI. PTI