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A worker adjusts the Pakistan and India flags prior to a meeting between the neighbors in 2008. |
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India and Pakistan announced Tuesday that their foreign ministers plan to meet in July in an effort to get peace talks back on track after the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.
Pakistan's Shah Mehmood Qureshi and India's S.M. Krishna have both agreed to meet in Islamabad on July 15.
The announcement follows a late April meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani. The two met on the sidelines of a two-day summit of South Asian leaders in Bhutan.
In his discussions with Gilani, Singh reiterated that Pakistan-based anti-India terror groups remained a key concern for his country.
The Indian premier also said there has been slow progress in Pakistan in the trial of men suspected of plotting the 2008 siege of Mumbai that left more than 160 people dead,.
India has long urged Pakistan to take action against the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba -- the Pakistan-based group allegedly behind the attack.
Gilani said his nation was committed to a speedy trial of the Mumbai suspects.
April's talks covered various issues between the neighbors who have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, two of them over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
In 2004, the two countries agreed to a peace process called the "composite dialogue" that covered eight issues, including Kashmir, terrorism and Pakistan's concerns over river dams on the Indian side, which it sees as a threat to its water supplies.
Successive governments on both sides of the border carried forward the talks, which they acknowledged as a means to ending their historical acrimony. Singh and Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari hailed results from the negotiations in September 2008 as the countries completed four rounds of diplomatic meetings.
Source: Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN)
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