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India, Pakistan in `good' talks, sign pacts

Pakistan and India's foreign secretaries, Riaz Mohammad Khan, left, and Shyam Saran, second right, sign documents watched by their respective foreign ministers, in back row, Khursheed Kasuri, left, and Natwar Singh, second left, in Islamabad yesterday. PHOTO: AP

India and Pakistan signed two agreements on security cooperation yesterday as their foreign ministers discussed a tentative peace process, but a breakthrough on their core dispute over Kashmir was not expected.

India's Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, said their talks were going well as officials signed pacts on advance warning of ballistic missile tests and on a hotline between their coast guards.

"All I can say is that the talks went off in a very cordial manner," Kasuri told reporters at the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, during a break in the discussions.

"We have had very good talks. Now we are again going for talks," Singh said.

The neighbors have gone to war three times since independence in 1947 and nearly fought a fourth in 2002 before launching a peace process early last year.

The missile test warning deal was first struck during talks between Indian and Pakistani officials in New Delhi in August but was now being officially brought into force.

"The agreement entails that both countries provide each other advance notification of flight tests that it intends to undertake of any surface-to-surface ballistic missile," the two sides said in a statement.

"India has now handed over a draft memorandum of understanding on measures to reduce the risks of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons under the control of both countries," the statement said.

As well as the two security pacts, there is also a possibility of progress on the withdrawal of troops from a disputed Himalayan glacier and on a maritime border row, analysts said.

But a breakthrough on the main issue of contention, their decades-long dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, was not likely, analysts from both sides have said.

"We shouldn't expect major breakthroughs but definitely we'll see some progress," Jamshed Ayaz, president of the Institute of Regional Studies, an Islamabad-based think-tank, said on Sunday.

Singh's visit follows a meeting between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York last month that ended without any major announcement or concrete initiatives, as many had expected.

Even before that meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the neighbors exchanged barbs on Kashmir.

Both countries claim the region but it remains divided by a ceasefire line, the result of their first war over the territory soon after independence from Britain in 1947.

Tens of thousands have died in Indian Kashmir since 1989, when a Muslim separatist revolt against Indian rule erupted.

Despite differences over Kashmir, a ceasefire has held there since late 2003 and the two sides have launched a so-called composite dialogue on a range of issues, including Kashmir.

While little progress has been made on Kashmir, the two sides have reached agreement in several other areas including the restoration of diplomatic, sports and transport links, as well as on some trade and prisoner exchanges.

They have also discussed energy cooperation, in particular a US$7 billion gas pipeline from Iran, through Pakistan, to India.

But analysts say that project could be at risk in the wake of India's vote at the International Atomic Energy Agency's board meeting late last month. India joined the US in voting to refer Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
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