India, Pakistan, begin anti-terrorism talks

Islamabad: Pakistan and India began a one-day counter-terrorism meeting in Islamabad on Tuesday amid mutual suspicion over each other's involvement in separatist insurgencies raging in border areas.

Although it was meant to happen on a quarterly basis, this was only the third meeting of the "anti-terrorism mechanism" since Indian and Pakistani leaders agreed to establish it in September 2006.

That initiative came two months after train bombings in the Indian city of Mumbai killed at least 180 people and cast a pall over a peace process the nuclear armed rivals began in 2004.

The aim was to provide a platform for an exchange of information and assistance in investigations.

The quality of exchanges, however, was only likely to improve once more trust was established between the neighbours who in 2002 went to the brink of war, having already fought three since the 1947 partition of India.

Pakistan's new civilian-led government, formed three months ago, has high hopes of building better relations with India.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was scheduled to visit Delhi on Friday to get to know Indian leaders better and exchange ideas on moving relations forward on Kashmir, a trans-border gas pipeline from Iran, and trade and economic issues.

"The atmospherics are very positive with India," Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said.

Infiltration by militants from Pakistan into Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state, has dropped off substantially since the peace process started, although there are fears it will rise ahead of local elections due later this year.

But in the last two years India has suffered bomb attacks by Islamist militants on cities outside Kashmir, including Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ajmer, Varanasi and last month Jaipur.

The security situation has deteriorated in Pakistan as well.

It has been under internal attack from militants opposed to President Pervez Musharraf's alliance in 2001 with the United States in its war on terrorism.

Since mid-2007, Pakistan has reeled from a wave of suicide attacks mounted by Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaida-linked militants based in tribal lands close to the Afghan border.

Yet India is concerned Pakistan has not come down hard enough on banned militant organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, based in the central province of Punjab.

For its part, Pakistan remains suspicious of the activities of Indian consulates in Afghanistan.

Senior Pakistani military officers and bureaucrats privately accuse India of helping separatists wage a low level insurgency in the western province of Baluchistan, and also say India is helping destabilise the Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border as it takes Pakistani troops away from the Indian border.