CHAPTER - 7

STATEMENT REGARDING INDO-PAKISTAN TALKS

Rajya Sabha, 18 May 1976

The Minister of External Affairs (Shri Y B. Chavan) : Sir, as the House is aware ever since the Simla Agreement was signed in July 1972, it has been the Government of India’s policy that, in keeping with the Agreement, the severed links between India and Pakistan should be restored and the relationship between the two countries normalised. During this period, many problems have indeed been resolved. The telecommunications and postal services between the two countries re-established and a visa agreement was signed to facilitate travel from Pakistan to India and vice versa. In January 1975, agreements were also reached between the two Governments on shipping and trade. However, some other items from the Simla Agreement remained unresolved; these were air and land communications and the restoration of diplomatic relations. Two meetings between official delegations were held in November 1974 and May 1975 to discuss questions arising out of Pakistan’s complaints with the International Civil Aviation Organisation but no agreement could be reached.

On the 27th March, Prime Minister of Pakistan, in a letter to our Prime Minister, indicated that Pakistan would be prepared to withdraw its case from the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

As the House is aware, India had previously urged such a course in order that the process of normalisation could maintain its momentum and the Simla Agreement enjoins us to work for the establishment of durable peace and harmonious bilateral relations, our Prime Minister, in her reply of 11th April, suggested that the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries should meet and discuss pending matters such as air-links, overflights, resumption and rail and road communications and also the restoration of the served diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan. The Prime Minister of Pakistan accepted these suggestions in his letter of 18th April. As a result, the two Foreign Secretaries arranged for the delegations to met in Islamabad between the 12th & the 14th may.

After, the meeting, a Joint Statement was issued,  which was simultaneously released to the Press in the two capitals. The two governments have also agreed to make public the three letters exchanged between the two Prime Minister. I  am placing texts of the Joint Statement and letters on the Table of the House.

The Members will observe that the Joint Statement embodies an agreement to restore all the severed links between the two countries. In respect of some of these items, further technical level contacts may be necessary to work out the detailed arrangements for the resumption of the links. It has subsequently been agreed that this entire package embodied in the Joint Statement would be put into effect more or less simultaneously between the 17th July and the 25th July, 1976.

I am confident that these positive developments will be welcomed by the House, the people of our two countries as also the friends of our two countries in the region and the world at large. Both countries must recognize the logic of their interdependence and the need for co-operative relations between neighbours. If peace and mutual confidence prevail in the sub-continent, our nations could more fully bend theirs talent and energies to resolve the gigantic problems which confront us and play an even more effective role in the international sphere where we have so many interests in common.