National
No request for Mishra, Sattar meet in Germany
By C. Raja Mohan
NEW DELHI, JAN. 28. Neither India nor Pakistan have formally sought a meeting between the National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, and the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, both of whom will be present later this week at an annual security conclave in Munich, Germany.
But Mr. Mishra is unlikely to be uncivil and avoid seeing Mr. Sattar on the margins of the conference. Like in Kathmandu earlier this month, where Indian and Pakistani leaders met on the sidelines of the South Asian summit, an informal Indo- Pakistan conversation in Munich is not being ruled out.
Germany will be the second stop on Mr. Mishra's three- nation European tour. Mr. Mishra is heading to France tonight for the eighth round of the strategic dialogue between the two nations.
These biannual exchanges between Mr. Mishra and Gerard Errera, special envoy of the French President, have been productive opportunities for deepening understanding on a broad range of security-related issues.
Mr. Mishra, who has recently been appointed as a special envoy of the Prime Minister to the United Kingdom, will also travel to London for consultations before returning home.
Mr. Mishra has been travelling to Germany for the last four years to attend the annual conference of security policy- makers, principally from the Euro-Atlantic world. In the last few years, there have been participants from Russia and China as well.
India has been invited since the nuclear tests of May 1998. This is the first time that Pakistan is being invited to join the conference.
Even if a Mishra-Sattar meeting does occur in Germany, it is unlikely to signal any impending change in the Indian policy towards Pakistan.
In the recent days, India has reaffirmed unambiguously that a de-escalation of the diplomatic and military tensions can only begin after Pakistan acts on the list of 20 terrorists and takes concrete steps to curb cross-border infiltration of terrorists.
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