India and Pakistan vowed Thursday to carry out peace talks responsibly and constructively as they began discussions aiming to stabilise South Asia as thousands of US troops prepare to leave Afghanistan.
Concerns over terrorism are likely to dominate India's agenda after US troops killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and following the collapse in 2008 of a four-year peace process when Islamist gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai.
'Pakistan approaches the dialogue process with India with an acute sense of responsibility to posterity,' deputy foreign minister Hina Rabbani told a joint news conference with visiting British foreign secretary William Hague.
She said Pakistan wanted to move forward 'to a point where we can talk'.
India blamed the Mumbai attacks on Pakistani militants from the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba group, and Islamabad acknowledged that the plot was hatched at least partly on its soil.
'Pakistan will continue making sincere efforts to get concrete results from the talks for the sake of peace and prosperity not only for Pakistan but also for entire South Asian region,' said Rabbani.
Ending a freeze of more than two years, the two countries announced that peace talks would resume after a meeting in February between Pakistani foreign secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao.
Source : New Age
