Islamabad, New Delhi in peace talks

NEW DELHI - The Associated Press

Officials from India and Pakistan began another round of peace talks Wednesday after the recent arrest of a key suspect in the terror attack on India’s financial capital four years ago.

Talks between India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai and his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani are being held two weeks after the suspect told Indian investigators that Pakistan’s intelligence agency officials were present in a Karachi control room while he and others directed attackers on the ground in Mumbai, The Associated Press reported.

Last month, India and Pakistan held inconclusive talks on resolving long-standing disputes over a glacier in the Himalayas and a maritime boundary.

New Delhi suspended a four-year peace process with Islamabad after the attacks on India’s financial capital by 10 Islamist gunmen that left 166 people dead. The full peace dialogue only resumed in February last year, Agence France-Presse reported. The latest meeting was expected to prepare the agenda for talks between the countries’ foreign ministers that are likely to be held next month. A senior Indian government official said Wednesday’s meeting had the sole aim of keeping the “dialogue process on track.”

The talks would focus on peace and security, including the threat posed by terrorism, the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir and confidence-building measures to push closer ties.

Jilani told reporters that he had been “mandated by the Pakistani leadership to move the peace process forward.” However, Indian officials are likely to press Islamabad over its failure to crackdown on terror camps operated by Islamic militant groups and located in Pakistan.