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Published 04 Jul, 2012 06:41am

India, Pakistan foreign secretaries hold talks

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan’s foreign secretaries were meeting on Wednesday to bolster the peace dialogue between the two South Asian countries.

The round of peace talks between Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani and his Indian counterpart Ranjan Mathai in New Delhi comes after the recent arrest of a key suspect in the Mumbai terror attacks.

Wednesday's talks are being held 10 days after the arrested suspect reportedly told Indian investigators that Pakistani intelligence officials were present in a Karachi control room while he and others directed attackers on the ground in Mumbai.

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

The latest meeting is expected to prepare the agenda for talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries next month.

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 crackdown on terror camps operated by militant groups allegedly located in Pakistan.

Ties between the two countries were fractured by the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 10 terrorists killed 166 people in a three-day siege.

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