India and Pakistan will sign a new liberalised visa agreement here tomorrow to boost people to people contacts while External Affairs Minister S M Krishna will hold crucial talks with his counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar, who today said that terrorism was 'mantra of the past'.
"Yes. It will be signed," Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, and added that the much-awaited pact would be signed between him and Krishna.
An MoU in the field of culture is also scheduled to be signed tomorrow when the two Foreign Ministers meet. Ahead of the Krishna-Khar meeting, Foreign Secretary-level talks were held here today during which the two sides discussed all aspects of the resumed dialogue, apart from reviewing the entire expanse of the discussions held so far.
Krishna, who arrived in Islamabad today also called on Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and met a series of political leaders from MQM, ANP and PML-Q parties. Ashraf and Krishna discussed the way to take forward the India-Pakistan relationship.
Across the political spectrum, all the leaders, including Ashraf, said they were looking forward to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit here before the end of the year.
Earlier, the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan met for more than two hours, after which they described their discussions as "positive" and "frank".
"Talks were positive and very good. We had an overview of issues before Foreign Minister-level talks," Pakistan Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani told PTI.
The two sides acknowledged that progress has been made in bilateral ties but agreed that "much more needs to be done".
The talks between Jilani and his Indian counterpart Ranjan Mathai was a preparatory meeting to finalise the agenda for the parleys between Krishna and Khar.
In an interview to PTI today Khar said that terrorism was 'the mantra of the past, and not the mantra of future'.
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