India willing to release all Pak fishermen: SM Krishna

New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) Even as the dialogue process
remains stalled, India on Friday said it is willing to release
all Pakistani fishermen after proper verification and
undertake other humanitarian initiatives.
Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, who expects
his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Delhi during
the early part of next year, said India wants to encourage the
people-to-people contacts.
In an interaction with a group of journalists here, he
said the two sides had reached agreements on such issues
during the Foreign Ministerial talks in Islamabad in July but
Pakistan had disfavoured making it public.
He, however, did not spell out the agreements that were
reached but information regarding which was withheld.
Talking about humanitarian issues, Krishna said India is
willing to release all the Pakistani fishermen held here.
Some of the Pakistani fishermen have been released but
many others could not be as there were "some problems" related
to verification of their identities, he said, adding Pakistan
High Commission has been asked to expedite the process.
In a goodwill gesture last month on the eve of
Eid-ul-Fitr, India had announced the release of 85 Pakistani
prisoners, most of them fishermen lodged in various jails in
the country. With this, a total of 213 Pakistani prisoners
were released this year.
On September 6, a group of 141 Indian fishermen were
released by Pakistani authorities from a Karachi jail,
completing the process of freeing 442 fishermen who have
undergone their prison terms.
On his talks with Qureshi in July, Krishna said the
discussions were "useful and satisfactory" and "we were able
to arrive" on agreements on a number of points like
people-to-people contacts.
Contending that five hours of talks were not enough to
address issues that are as old as 60 years, he said he had
believed that the Foreign Ministerial meeting would open a way
to other things but "that could not happen though there was
agreement on a number of issues".
Krishna said there was a "possibility" of his meeting
with Qureshi in New York on the sidelines of the UN General
Assembly last month and even the Joint Secretaries concerned
were called there.
"At the High Commissioners level, moves were being made
and based on that we were ready for meeting.... But this did
not happen," he said, adding he felt that a meeting in New
Delhi would be "more effective" than the one in New York.
He said he had a chance meeting with Qureshi in New York
during which he enquired about the flood situation in Pakistan
and his counterpart profusely thanked India for its 25 million
dollar aid for the same.
Notwithstanding the lack of warmth in Indo-Pak ties,
Krishna pressed the international community to "rush" with
help to Pakistan which is facing a crisis because of massive
floods.
"We have sympathy with Pakistan... I hope the
international community will rush to Pakistan with aid in this
hour (of crisis) caused by the devastating floods," he said.
PTI AKK
AVT


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