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| Wednesday, 18 February 2004 |
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India, Pakistan hammer out agenda ISLAMABAD, Tuesday (Reuters) Nuclear-rivals India and Pakistan entered a second day of talks on Tuesday to hammer out an agenda for what is likely to be a drawn-out peace process, with Kashmir and nuclear security the top issues. Both sides said they were satisfied with the progress made on Monday when middle-ranking foreign ministry officials sat down for the first formal peace talks between the old foes in more than two and a half years. A second day of talks on Tuesday aims to pave the way for a meeting of foreign secretaries on Wednesday, the highest-ranking bureaucrats in the rival ministries. There is broad agreement to revive a "composite dialogue" over eight areas of dispute, a process that ran aground in 1998 and finally collapsed with a failed summit in the Indian city of Agra in July 2001. But slight differences remain over who should be involved in the talks about the mainly Muslim Himalayan region of Kashmir, the trigger for two of three wars between the neighbours. Pakistan wants the dialogue over Kashmir to be conducted at a political level, to maintain the momentum generated by a landmark meeting between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee last month. India would prefer to leave the Kashmir talks to foreign secretaries, the format agreed in 1998, officials say. Under that structure foreign secretaries would also discuss "peace and security", code for a range of confidence-building measures meant to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear exchange. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri said that the talks should gather pace to produce a breakthrough before Musharraf ceases to be army chief by the end of 2004. |
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