Word: pakistans
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Could one of the world's most intractable conflicts be close to an end? India and Pakistan's foreign secretaries met on Thursday, the first time the two countries have held official talks since the November 2008 terrorist strike in Mumbai. India blames Pakistan-based terrorist networks for the attacks and has been pushing Pakistan to crack down on jihadist groups targeting India. Pakistan says it is doing all it can. The issue has derailed diplomacy between the South Asian neighbors, but the talks on Thursday could mark the beginning of a new phase of their relationship. The buzz...
...Calendar Indian officials have been careful to set low expectations for the talks. The two top bureaucrats who met, India's Nirupama Rao and Pakistan's Salman Bashir, had no fixed agenda for their discussion and, as expected, did not issue any joint statements or decide when to hold the next round of talks. At a press conference after the close of the three-hour session, Rao said only that they would "remain in touch" and kept open the possibility that their two Prime Ministers would meet at a South Asian regional summit in Bhutan in April. The date...
...Mirwaiz Umar Farooq The charismatic spiritual leader of the main mosque in Indian Kashmir is one of the few public figures who commands respect and wields influence in India and Pakistan and among ordinary Kashmiris. He has already floated the idea that Kashmiris should be considered as a third party to the talks but has otherwise not objected. If the two countries begin discussing Kashmir in earnest, as Pakistan is demanding, it will be difficult to reach a lasting agreement without the leader's support. Indian Kashmir has been increasingly tense over the past several months, with a growing cohort...
...German bakery in Pune, which killed 16 people, five of them foreigners, would have given New Delhi a perfect excuse to call off the talks. But despite some pressure from opposition parties, the Indian government stuck to its program. Indian authorities have refrained from pinning blame on Pakistan for the Pune blast; there has been no official claim of responsibility. India, which wants credit for that restraint, came to the table with a long list of demands. Rao presented Bashir with three dossiers of evidence linking Pakistan to the Mumbai attacks, including a list of 34 Pakistanis wanted for various...
...Afghanistan While it won't figure in official talks between India and Pakistan, Afghanistan is the most important subtext. Both countries are starting the long process of positioning themselves for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Central Asian country and want to preserve their influence there. Pakistan fears that Kabul will end up with close links to New Delhi, allowing India to essentially "surround" Pakistan; India worries that if the Taliban return to power, India will face more terrorist attacks at home. Influential Indian foreign policy analyst C. Raja Mohan has even suggested, in a recent editorial...