Pakistani, Indian FMs push for peace talks

Pakistani, Indian FMs push for peace talks

Reuters, Islamabad

Foreign ministers from India and Pakistan met on Wednesday to advance a fledgling peace process and discuss divided Kashmir, the root cause of decades of hostility between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri held informal talks with his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh on the sidelines of a regional forum to discuss where the road map to peace is leading the South Asian neighbors.

"We discussed Kashmir, the bus service and Indian-Pakistan relations," Kasuri told reporters after a 75-minute breakfast meeting. "There is no such issue that we did not touch."

The sides have proposed reviving a bus service linking the two capitals of Kashmir, but talks have been delayed for months due to differences over passenger documentation and what status to give the militarized Line of Control dividing the region.

Singh said there had been "progress", adding that Kasuri would travel to New Delhi for formal talks on Sept. 5 and 6. He said the two sides aimed to reopen consulates in Pakistan's port city of Karachi and India's Bombay as soon as possible.

But in a reference to ongoing violence in Kashmir, he added: "We also discussed cross border terrorism and infiltration, everything. We hope we will be able to make greater progress after the September meeting."

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in a 15-year insurgency by militants in India's only Muslim-majority state, and a recent spike in attacks is causing concern in New Delhi.

Late on Tuesday, suspected Muslim rebels ambushed a police patrol in Indian Kashmir, killing four policemen.

New Delhi blames the violence on Pakistani militants crossing the Line of Control, but Islamabad calls the rebellion a local "legitimate freedom struggle" against Indian rule.

While no breakthrough was expected this week, diplomats and analysts said sustaining contact was vital to the process.

Wednesday's meeting was the third between Kasuri and Singh since India's Congress party won a surprise victory in elections in May.

Their talks in September will follow a series of official negotiations on six disputes, ranging from water sharing to a Himalayan battlefield on the Siachen Glacier.

Singh is expected to call this week on President Pervez Musharraf, who with former Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is the main architect of a peace initiative formally launched when the two met at a regional summit in January.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir and one over Bangladesh, and came close to waging a fourth in 2002 after Pakistan-based militants launched an attack on Indian parliament.

One million troops amassed on their border, but U.S. intervention and an olive branch extended by Vajpayee in April, 2003 pulled them back from the brink.

Since then, transport links have been restored and people-to- people contacts encouraged, and both countries are looking at ways of boosting economic cooperation and trade.

The new government in New Delhi has expressed interest in pursuing a natural gas pipeline running from Iran across Pakistan to meet India's growing energy needs, a major project held up for years by tensions in South Asia.

Western diplomats say the thaw in relations between Pakistan and India in the last two years offers the best chance for lasting peace in South Asia in decades.