Foreign Secretary Rao meets Pillai over ISI remark row

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has met Home Secretary G K Pillai against the backdrop of apparent differences between the ministry of external affairs and the ministry of home affairs in connection with the Indo-Pak talks held recently.

Rao met Pillai on Thursday and is understood to have briefed him about the recent talks between External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

The meeting is being seen in many quarters as an effort by Rao to break the apparent communication gap between the two ministries in the aftermath of the July 15 talks between the two countries.

A controversy had erupted after Pillai had made a remark about the involvement of the Inter Services Intelligence in the Mumbai terror attacks ahead of the talks, a matter which was taken up by the Pakistani side.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Qureshi had said that Pillai's remarks were uncalled for and tried to equate them to hate speeches by Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed.

Disapproving the comments made by Pillai on the eve of the Indo-Pak talks, Krishna had said that the timing of the remarks was 'very unfortunate'. Krishna had gone on to say that had he been the home secretary, he would not have revealed the details of Pakistani-American terror operative David Headley's revelations.

Factually, Pillai was 'very much in order' in speaking about the disclosures made by Headley to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Indian interrogators but "the timing was something which was very unfortunate," Krishna had said.

The minister said that he had 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 the 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 the JuD chief's anti-India statement and his remarks on the ISI.