Indo-Pak relations have improved substantially, says Rice

| October 11th, 2008 | By: Piyush Goyal | Category: Featured

WASHINGTON: Commending the measures initiated by India and Pakistan to better bilateral ties, US Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has said the two Asian neighbours have come a long way since escalated tensions in the subcontinent had led to a war-like situation in 2001.

“Relations have improved a lot. They’ve opened lines of communication in Kashmir, they’ve opened trade and bus traffic. There’s still a lot of clashes along the line of control which separates Pakistanis and India in the region of Kashmir. But it is a lot better situation than it was in 2001 and 2002,” the Secretary of State said.

Recalling the strained relations between the two countries following the terrorist attack on Indian Parliament in 2001, Rice recalled how she had kept her family waiting for a Christmas dinner as she discussed with top US and British officials the way out to prevent New Delhi and Islamabad coming to blows.

“… In December of 2001, I remember merry Christmas night being on the telephone with Colin Powell, the Secretary of State at the time, Jack Straw, who was then the foreign secretary for Great Britain, David Manning, former ambassador here who was Prime Minister Blair’s foreign policy adviser, and it looked like Pakistan and India were going to war,” Rice recounted.

“And I remember it well because my family was downstairs waiting for me to come to Christmas dinner. And we were on the phone just trying to figure out who might go into the subcontinent into South Asia to talk to them to keep them from coming to blows,” Rice told Fox News. PTI

Latest Top Stories:

Who’s who of Bollywood attend Dabangg premiere
The who's who of Bollywood flocked to the premiere of Salman Khan-Sonakshi Sinha starrer Dabangg premiere held in… »
Obama criticizes plan to burn Qurans, calls it a stunt
Washington: President Obama sharply criticised a Florida pastor’s plan to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the… »
India to carry out its first caste census
New Delhi: India will carry out its first caste census in 80 years, in a controversial decision that could define how political… »
Dabangg has super-hit written all over it
'Dabangg' has turned out to be one of those rare films that have super-hit written on them right from the time their promotion… »
Delhi hospital bags FICCI health care excellence award
New Delhi: Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, a Delhi Government hospital, has won the FICCI Health Care Excellence Award… »
Fearing backlash, Mohammad Asif mulls taking asylum in Britain
London: Fearing a violent backlash in Pakistan for his alleged involvement in the spot-fixing scandal, pacer Mohammad Asif is… »
Chinese woman sues cinema over excessive ads
Beijing: A Chinese woman is suing a cinema and the distributors of domestic box-office hit "Aftershock" for wasting her time by… »
Indian filmmaker pleads guilty, to return home
A documentary filmmaker from India, arrested on a charge of bringing a prohibited weapon into Houston, has pleaded no contest… »
Indo-Pak duo enter US Open double’s final
New York: There was no stopping the 'Indo-Pak Express' as Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi inched closer to their maiden … »
Google launches instant search
Google introduced Google Instant search Wednesday with results given to users as they type the letters of words — not even… »