India and Pakistan Fail to Restart Negotiations

Reason · September 29, 2009, 8:34pm

UNITED NATIONS — An attempt by India and Pakistan to agree on resuming either open or back-channel negotiations over the full range of their differences stalled on Sunday, stuck once more by the fallout from the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai by Pakistani militants.
  After meeting for nearly two hours on the sidelines of the [United Nations](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org) [General Assembly](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/general_assembly/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the foreign ministers of the two countries, Shah Mahmood Qureshi of Pakistan and S. M. Krishna of India, said both sides endorsed the idea of resuming negotiations but failed to concur on a timetable.
India, without making it an outright condition that resuming talks depended on Pakistan’s prosecuting of those responsible for the Mumbai attacks, made clear that substantial progress would be required before negotiations could restart, said Salman Bashir, Pakistan’s foreign secretary, the No. 2 in the ministry.

“It has not been spelled out in that manner, but they want to see some visible action,” Mr. Bashir told reporters at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan where the talks were held. Pakistan had proposed restarting talks before year’s end, an idea the Indians did not reject outright but did not accept either, he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/world/asia/28nations.html

CM · September 30, 2009, 5:32am

Re: India and Pakistan Fail to Restart Negotiations

And this is a surprise to whom exactly?