Indian FM to visit Islamabad on Sept 7

India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna will undertake a three-day visit to Pakistan from Sept.7 to review the second round of the bilateral dialogue process with his counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar. Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal met Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani on Monday and informed him about the dates for Krishna’s visit, diplomatic sources told reporters. The dates for the visit were earlier suggested by the Foreign Office. The Indian envoy and Jilani also discussed bilateral issues, including preparations for Krishna’s visit. Krishna will review the dialogue process, which resumed last year after a gap of over two years in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, during a meeting with Khar on Sept.8, the sources said. Following the review, Krishna and Khar are expected to prepare the framework for the third round of the resumed dialogue. During his stay in Islamabad, Krishna is expected to call on President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and some key political leaders, including PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Muslim League-Q leader Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain. In a related developmet US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters on Monday that Americans don’t understand cricket, but they like it, particularly of the diplomatic variety between friend India and ally Pakistan. “We’re for cricket. We don’t understand it, but we like it,” Nuland said amid laughter when asked to comment on resumption of India-Pakistan cricketing ties. “We share the interest of people in India, (and) people in Pakistan ...in seeing these two countries continuing to improve their relationship,” she said reiterating US support for a continued dialogue between the two South Asian neighbours. Welcoming the “considerable progress on the economic side,” Nuland said, the US “encouraged them to do better on issues like sharing counterterrorism information and dealing with threats to both countries,” but it was up to New Delhi and Islamabad how they move forward. Gulf Today