Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik today met Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and discussed the possibility of a bilateral meeting between Foreign Secretaries of the two countries on the sidelines of the SAARC ministerial meeting in Colombo this week.
During the 30-minute meeting, Malik and Menon discussed various aspects of bilateral relations that have been hit by
the Mumbai attacks.
They also deliberated on the possibility of resumption of the composite dialogue which has been suspended since
November, sources said.
One of the issues of focus was whether Menon could have a bilateral meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Salman
Bashir, formally or informally, in Colombo.
Menon and Bashir, along with their counterparts of six other SAARC nations, will be in Colombo from Wednesday for the foreign secretary-level meeting ahead of the Council of Ministers meeting on Friday.
Pakistan has been pressing for resumption of the Composite Dialogue but New Delhi is linking it to concrete actions by Islamabad to end cross-border terrorism.
External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee will be in Colombo on Friday but there will be no Indo-Pak minister-level meeting as Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is not going there.
