INDIA: Peace talks between India and Pakistan continued yesterday with the neighbouring nuclear rivals seemingly committed to keeping up their dialogue to reduce tension.
Pakistani security officials reassured their Indian counterparts in Islamabad yesterday that they neither supported nor sponsored the 15-year Muslim insurgency raging in their part of northern Kashmir province that has claimed over 45,000 lives.
India blames Pakistan for fuelling terrorism in Kashmir, which is divided between the neighbours and claimed by both. The disputed principality has also been the cause of two wars and an 11-month long border conflict between the two states since independence from colonial rule in 1947.
Pakistan has consistently denied Indian allegations that it arms, trains and launches militant groups across the porous line of control that divides the Himalayan province.
This denial was reinforced yesterday at the end of two days of talks between senior interior ministry civil servants from India and Pakistan on ways to fight terrorism and drug trafficking.
Officials said the discussions were "positive".
Yesterday trade officials from either side also began talks in Islamabad aimed at strengthening economic and commercial relations.
"We are going to discuss all the issues presently obstructing India-Pakistan trade," Dipak Chatterjee, leader of the Indian delegation, said.
Since February, senior officials from both sides have been engaged in talks on a variety of contentious issues following the "path-breaking" meeting between India's former prime minister Atal Behrai Vajpayee and Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of a regional Asian summit after months of escalating diplomatic and military tension.
Under pressure from Washington, the two leaders decided to initiate a peace dialogue in order to reduce the military and nuclear one-upmanship that was beggaring their poverty-ridden peoples.