NEW DELHI, March 8: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that peace talks with Pakistan had brought ‘positive results’.

“We have been working purposefully for all-round improvement of relations with Pakistan,” he told the parliament. “Efforts we have made are beginning to bring positive results. We will work resolutely.”

Mr Singh said New Delhi wants ‘long-lasting peace, friendship and amity’ with Islamabad, and that ‘peace and security in the region is the key objective of our foreign policy’.

Mr Singh’s statement came a day after the two countries concluded their first meeting of a panel set up to fight terrorism jointly, amid charges by Pakistan that India was fuelling a tribal insurgency in Balochistan.

New Delhi on Wednesday denied the charges, and said it had handed over to Islamabad ‘evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in terrorist activities on Indian soil’.

The joint initiative to fight terrorism was launched in November when the two sides resumed peace talks in New Delhi following the July train bombings in Mumbai in which 186 people died. India alleged Pakistani intelligence was involved in the blasts. —AFP

Jawed Naqvi adds from New Delhi: Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will visit Islamabad next week to launch a fourth round of the Composite Dialogue with Pakistan amid indications on Thursday that he would be carrying agreeable news on key issues bothering both sides.

According to informed reports one such news on Kashmir is that the dreaded Border Security Forces would vacate key areas in the Valley next week, some of which will henceforth be handled by the less trigger-happy CRPF, federal paramilitary police.

The two countries have accused each other of mistreating ordinary prisoners and also of not coming clean on their POWs. Pakistan had suggested a bilateral committee of retired judges to visit suspected jails on both sides, and had given India a list of its proposed members. India on Thursday announced the names of its own four retired judges to join the committee that would jointly comb for prisoners and prison abuse.

The most reassuring signal for next week's talks came on Thursday from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself who told the Lok Sabha that the peace dialogue with Pakistan was beginning to yield positive results.

"We have been working purposefully for all-round improvement of relations with Pakistan," Dr Singh said during a discussion on the government's domestic and foreign policies.

Dr Singh added that India needed "long-lasting peace, friendship and amity" with Pakistan and that "efforts we have made are beginning to bring positive results. We will work resolutely in this direction."

Mr Menon's March 13-15 visit for talks with Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan will be held a week after the successful first meeting of the India-Pakistan Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism in Islamabad. The United States has applauded the outcome of these talks.

Since the two foreign secretaries met in November 2006 their governments have operationalised an “Agreement on Reducing Risks from Accidents relating to Nuclear Weapons.”

At the upcoming Islamabad meeting, the two foreign secretaries are expected to review bilateral relations and discuss the gamut of issues including Kashmir, peace and security.