India, Pakistan to resume dialogue

Pakistan Thursday confirmed an agreement with India that would see dialogue resume "on all issues," more than two years after peace talks collapsed, and said its foreign minister would visit India by July.

Pakistan's foreign ministry made the announcement Sunday following a meeting between the two countries' top foreign ministry civil servants in Bhutan, where the two prime ministers also met in April.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash also said earlier that officials from both sides would meet "in the coming weeks and months" to carry out "the necessary spadework" that would culminate in a meeting of the foreign ministers.

However, he declined to confirm whether this represented a return to the full-fledged peace process - known as the "composite dialogue" - that was suspended in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which claimed 166 lives.

Kalim Bahadur, a retired professor of South Asian studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, cautioned against hopes of a breakthrough.

"At the moment, nobody can really say what precise form these talks will take or what they might achieve," Bahadur told AFP.

"The so-called trust-deficit is still very apparent, so I really don't see where this can lead in the short-term," he said.

Relations between India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, have been plagued by border and resource disputes, and accusations of Pakistani militant activity against India

They embarked on a formal peace dialogue in 2004, but India suspended the process after the Mumbai attacks.

Pakistani calls for a resumption were repeatedly rebuffed by India, which insisted that Islamabad had not done enough to bring to justice the Pakistan-based militants it blames for the attacks.

Agencies