Thursday, December 1 2005 15:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The trial runs of Amritsar-Lahore bus service are scheduled for December 11 and 13, while talks for finalizing Amritsar-Nankana Sahib bus service will be held on December 20 and 21, the Rajya Sabha was informed today (December 1, 2005).

Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed said in a written reply that operation of the Amritsar-Lahore bus service and talks for finalizing Amritsar-Nankana Sahib bust service were postponed due to the earthquake in Kashmir on October eight.

The earthquake has affected work on the Poonch-Rawalakot bus service and for the plying of trucks on the Srinagar -Muzaffarabad route, he said adding that talks will be held after an assessment of the time likely to be taken to repair the infrastructure on both sides.

To another question, Ahamed said there were about 54 Indian Prisoners of War (PoWs) from the 1971 War in Pakistani jails. "However, Pakistan has never acknowledged presence of any Indian PoW in its jails," he said adding New Delhi has been consistently taking up the issue with Islamabad at all levels.

Ahamed also said the next Indo-Pak Foreign Secretaries meeting would be held here in January to launch the third round of the Composite Dialogue.

On the 13th SAARC Summit in Dhaka, Ahamed said the major theme was cooperation in counter-terrorism.

There is a strong condemnation of terrorism in the Summit Declaration and a renewed commitment to eliminate this scourge, he said adding that for the first time there was a clear reference to avoiding double standards in tackling the challenge.

"This is a major achievement of the Summit, and is in line with India's own foreign policy," he added.