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ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, Sunday (Reuters)

The leaders of India and Pakistan have revitalised a flagging peace process, analysts said on Saturday a day after the two met in New York for their first face-to-face talks.

South Asia's nuclear rivals have held a series of talks at foreign minister and senior official level this year aimed at building confidence after the long-time enemies came to the brink of war in 2002.

But sluggish progress, particularly on the core issue of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, led to fears the talks would achieve little, particularly after the prime mover in the peace process, Atal Behari Vajpayee lost power in a shock Indian election result in May.

But Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed in New York on Friday to continue a dialogue aimed at restoring normalcy and cooperation between the two countries.

"This statement energises the ongoing India-Pakistan dialogue process," said Dr. Riffat Hussain, head of defence and strategic studies at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

Indian analysts took a similar view of the outcome.

"A peace process which was deemed somewhat sluggish...has clearly culminated in a broad understanding on how to take the process forward," said C. Raja Mohan, professor of international relations at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

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