Pakistan, India top diplomats hold peace talks

NEW DELHI: Pakistan and India’s foreign ministers held their first talks for a year Wednesday, looking to inject fresh life into a peace process still stifled by the trauma of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

India suspended contacts with its arch-rival after the attacks and the peace dialogue has struggled to gain any real traction since its formal resumption in an atmosphere of mutual recrimination and mistrust.

Speaking to reporters before the talks began, Pakistan's new foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, said it was important that ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours and rivals should "not be held hostage by the past."

At 79, her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna is 45 years her senior.

A senior Indian government source said the meeting was "not a good idea at all" and served "no useful purpose" in the context of the ongoing peace dialogue.

"The people in power, including the military, are comfortable that she will follow whatever brief is given to her," Pakistan foreign policy analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.

"She will not make waves," he added.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011