Pak, India want to move forward: Menon

NEW DELHI : Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon has said Pakistan and India want to move forward in their bilateral relations. While referring to Kashmir issue, he said the Pakistan government has an open mind on the issue. Both Pakistan and India have their own position on the Kashmir dispute, he noted.
“Without prejudicing their own position we are trying to find out ways to deal with the welfare of the people in mind,” he said while talking to newsmen on the sidelines of a book launching ceremony here.
Referring to the issue of Sarabjit Singh’s death sentence in Pakistan, Shivshankar Menon said India has to deal with the issue “quietly and gently”.
Menon who was in Pakistan on May 20 and 21 for talks with Pakistani side suggested that more intense spotlight on the issue makes the matter more difficult to resolve.
“It is hard to say. I am not sure that the public attention and singling one person out makes it easier to resolve it on humanitarian grounds,” media reports quoting him said.
“We will keep trying. Most we have to do it is quietly and gently,” he added. When asked whether the government is still hopeful about the Indo-US nuke deal, he said “we keep hoping and that is why we did it (deal).”