NEW DELHI, March 28 � Home Secretaries of India and Pakistan held talks for over five hours today termed by both sides as �extremely positive� and moving in the �right direction�, reports PTI.
�Talks are extremely positive. Progress made in certain direction, in the right direction,� Home Secretary G K Pillai told reporters at the end of the first day of the two-day talks with his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhary Qamar Zaman.
Zaman, who is leading a 12-member delegation, also said talks were �very positive�. �Since, we have another day for the talks to still follow through, I am not going into the specifics at the moment�.
�But I can tell you with good amount of certainty that its been a very positive attitude displayed on both sides and I am really confident about tomorrow�s proceedings also,� he said.
He went on to say that there were issues that were yet to be discussed. �We have issues that still we have to discuss. Its been generally moving on in a good spirit and it has been a result-oriented meeting�.
The Pakistan Home Secretary said he plans to visit Agra on Wednesday.
A joint statement by midday tomorrow, Pillai said.
The parleys, which stretched to over five hours, are understood to have covered a wide range of issues concerning the two countries including the progress in the probe into 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
The talks marked the resumption of high-level discussions on all issues, more than two years after the composite dialogue process was suspended in the wake of the November, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Incidently when Mumbai was being attacked by Lashker-e- Taiba terrorists, the then Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta was in Islamabad.
During the talks, the Indian side assisted by officials from security agencies will also discuss cross-border terrorism, smuggling of narcotics and flow of counterfeit currency.
New Delhi is unhappy over Islamabad�s reluctance in cooperating fully in bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage.
Today�s talks comes ahead of the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistan counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Mohali where the two leaders will witness Wednesday�s India-Pakistan World Cup cricket semi-final clash.
