Gujral establishes hotline with Sharief

Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral on Thursday established a hotline with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharief, hours ahead of the crucial second round of foreign secretary-level talks between the two nations in Islamabad.

A foreign ministry statement said Gujral contacted Sharief and ''expressed his resolve to continue efforts for promotion of good neighbourly relations''.

Sharief has promised his cooperation in sorting out the problems between the two countries.

The decision to establish the hotline was taken when the two prime ministers met on May 12 in Male in Maldives.

Foreign Secretary Salman Haider will head the Indian delegation, while his counterpart Shamshad Ahmed does the same for Pakistan. The Indian delegation includes foreign secretary-designate K Raghunath, Joint Secretary (Pakistan) Vivek Katju and Joint Secretary (Disarmament) Rakesh Sood. Indian High Commissioner Satish Chandra will be part of the delegation.

The Pakistani delegation includes senior foreign ministry officials and Pakistan High Commissioner to New Delhi, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.

The talks will formally begin on Friday morning and last till June 22. Both the foreign secretaries are expected to issue a joint statement at the end of the discussions.

The parleys are being resumed against the backdrop of certain developments like press reports -- including one from Washington that India deployed Prithvi missiles along its border with Pakistan -- and skirmishes between the two troops.

Pakistan is likely take up the Prithvi deployment issue although New Delhi has already denied the press reports.

Official sources in Islamabad said Pakistan will certainly raise the Kashmir issue, which it considers crucial in its relation with India, at the talks.

Earlier, the two foreign secretaries had been directed by their prime ministers to identify the areas in which they could set up joint working groups as part of normalisation of relations.

Haider and Ahmed had last met for the New Delhi round of talks. That discussion, however, was overshadowed by political developments in India following the Congress's withdrawal of support to the H D Deve Gowda government.

UNI