INDIA: Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan have agreed to set up a panel to share intelligence on terrorism and have approved a pact to reduce the risk of nuclear weapon "accidents".
The announcements yesterday came at the end of two days of talks in New Delhi between the top diplomats of the neighbouring countries, who resumed peace negotiations stalled by July's train bombings in the western port city of Bombay (also called Mumbai) that killed almost 300 people. India blamed Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate for masterminding the train blasts, which Islamabad vehemently denies.
Pakistan's foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan led the talks with his Indian counterpart Shiv Shankar Menon. He said both countries had been victims of terrorism and needed to work together.
"It would be a dangerous folly for either country to try to destabilise the other," the Pakistani diplomat told a news conference.
Mr Khan said the "finger-pointing" at Pakistan after the Bombay bombings had been counter-productive and the proposed panel would be a better forum to discuss such issues.
The two countries, which have fought three wars and engaged in an 11-week border skirmish since independence 59 years ago, also agreed on the "early signing" of an agreement to reduce the risk of "accidents relating to nuclear weapons". However, they declined to offer a specific timeframe or details that may emerge when peace talks continue in Islamabad in February 2007.
Both countries, which carried out tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, also "expressed satisfaction over the implementation of the [ earlier] agreement on pre-notification of flight testing of ballistic missiles".
The peace talks, which began in January 2004 and have completed several rounds, are aimed at ending bitter disputes between the countries after the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 by the colonial administration.