India and Pakistan say talks to improve ties will go on

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan said yesterday they would press ahead with a dialogue to build ties shattered by the Mumbai carnage after talks in Islamabad ended in an acrimonious stalemate.

The statements came after a visit by Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna to Islamabad ended last Friday on a sour note over what his counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said was India's "selective focus on terror".

The dialogue process "must go on" despite the chilly atmosphere, the Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said.

"There is a gap in perception... but these are not unbridgeable divides," Rao said, but she underscored strongly that action by Islamabad to counter Islamic militant threats against India remained New Delhi's top concern.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan also wanted the talks process to continue.

"We want dialogues, they (India) too want dialogues so when there are talks then we will discuss all issues," Gilani told reporters at Baloki, near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

However, Rao told India's NDTV network a "terror machine" directed against India involving "state and non-state actors" continues to exist in Pakistan.

"Serious introspection is required by Pakistan into why terror has been used as an instrument of policy against India," she said.

Islamabad also needs to understand "why terror threatens the very fabric of Pakistan itself," Rao said, referring to the slew of deadly attacks in the country blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Rao's comments echoed statements on the eve of the talks by India's Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, whose accusations that Pakistan's intelligence service coordinated the Mumbai attacks cast a long shadow over the Islamabad meeting.

India's newspapers, meanwhile, yesterday blamed Pakistan for creating the talks deadlock.

The Economic Times accused Islamabad of pushing ties "off the diplomatic rails... by sidelining New Delhi's main demand for action" against the Islamic militant perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which left 166 people dead.

The Hindustan Times said Pakistan had engaged in "ambush diplomacy" by insisting on a timeframe to resolve such thorny issues as the row over Muslim-majority Kashmir, which has triggered two of three wars between the nations.