ISLAMABAD - Indian and Pakistani diplomats pledged Thursday to strive for sustained dialogue to get their fragile relations back on track and deny militants space to derail reconciliation efforts.
India's top foreign ministry civil servant, Nirupama Rao, and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir met to craft the agenda for a meeting of their ministers on July 15.
"Pakistan and India should work towards restoring confidence and building trust with a view to making it possible to have a comprehensive, sustained and meaningful dialogue," Bashir told a joint news conference with Rao.
"After this engagement, I feel much more optimistic about a good outcome at the ministerial level and good prospects for the two countries in terms of our relationship."
India and Pakistan's foreign ministers S.M. Krishna and Shah Mehmood Qureshi are scheduled to meet in Islamabad on July 15 -- the third major contact in six months between countries that have fought three wars in 60 years.
The nuclear-armed rivals have embarked on a tentative reconciliation process since relations crashed to a new low when Islamist gunmen went on the rampage in Mumbai, leaving 166 people dead, in November 2008.
India and the United States blamed the attack on Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group based in Pakistan and linked to the Pakistani spy service.
New Delhi suspended a four-year peace process and demanded Islamabad bring to justice the perpetrators of what is considered India's September 11.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has charged seven suspects in connection with the Mumbai attacks, including alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and alleged LeT operative Zarar Shah, but Pakistan has said it needs more evidence.
Rao said India had raised concerns about terrorism and said the countries had to work together to deny militants space to sabotage their dialogue.
"We should jointly work together towards our goal of resolution of outstanding issues and also to dealing with the dangers, with the threat, with the evils of terrorism.
"We must deny terrorist elements any opportunity to derail the process of improvement of relations between our two countries.
"Dialogue is the best option for improvement of relations and deepening of understanding between the two countries," she said, adding: "We must think how better to cooperate and how better to resolve our differences".
The recent thaw in South Asia comes as the United States is trying to promote regional stability at a critical juncture in the war in Afghanistan, with Pakistan's own fight against the Taliban seen as crucial.
The Indian and Pakistani prime ministers met in April on the sidelines of a regional summit in Bhutan, which set in motion a process to revive suspended contacts at various levels of government.
Thursday's meeting was the first in Islamabad between the foreign secretaries since May 2008.
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram is due to arrive in Islamabad for a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) on Thursday. He is expected to meet Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
But some analysts said the best outcome of Thursday's talks would merely be more talks and not a resumption of the peace process.
"I don't expect much from these talks unless India is prepared to talk about issues other than terrorism," Pakistani analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.
"Therefore the talks may not produce anything significant which means resumption of comprehensive talks between India and Pakistan," he said.
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