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No bilateral meet in Pakistan: India
December 27, 2003 17:21 IST
No bilateral meetings have been fixed between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani leaders on the sidelines of the three-day South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad in January, India said on Saturday.
"Obviously, there will be occasions when leaders will get together during the conference and at the retreat. So those occasions will be there," Foreign Secretary Shashank said in New Delhi.
According to him, requests have been received from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal for bilateral meetings with the PM. "We are working on them."
Asked what India will do if a proposal for a meeting comes from the Pakistani side, he said, "No meeting has been fixed so you can draw your own conclusion."
India hopes that its concerns on cross-border terrorism and Indian insurgent groups operating in its neighbouring countries will be reflected in the SAARC declaration, he said. "We hope a strong message goes from the SAARC summit on this issue."