India wants the talks to focus on complaints that Pakistan has not done enough to crack down on militant groups who have carried out attacks here, especially those behind the November 2008 siege of Mumbai.
``Our core concern is going to be terror,' S.M. Krishna, India's foreign minister, told NDTV news channel last week. Pakistan is calling for wide-ranging negotiations that will focus on long-standing issues, including the conflict in disputed Kashmir and tensions over their shared water sources.
``We want to discuss and resolve all disputes with India,' Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said Wednesday in Lahore as he prepared to head to New Delhi to meet his counterpart, Nirupama Rao. Indian officials, unsatisfied with Pakistan's efforts against militants, have been careful to say the meeting Thursday does not represent a resumption of a full-scale peace process.
The talks are a political risk for New Delhi because the public does not trust Pakistan. However, the government does not want to write off diplomacy and wants to keep tensions low between the countries. ``It's an act of statesmanship on the part of the government,' said Mahesh Rangarajan, a history professor at the University of Delhi.
The United States, which is intent on eliminating all distractions from Pakistan's fight against militants along its frontier with Afghanistan, has been pushing for a resumption of the talks. Washington was dismayed when both India and Pakistan mobilised their troops to their shared border in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack, in which 10 Pakistan-based gunmen terrorised India's financial capital in a 60-hour rampage that killed 166 people. India froze comprehensive talks after the attack.
The US hopes that a reduction in tensions would help Pakistan shift its focus from the Indian border to the offensive against Taliban militants in its north-west. Moonis Ahmar, chairman of the International Relations department at the University of Karachi, said the talks were mainly intended to show the world that the two countries were trying to re-establish normal relations.
``I don't think there are high expectations on either side,' he said. In a sign of the daily tensions that still confront the two neighbours, a gunbattle Wednesday between Indian forces and suspected Muslim insurgents in Indian Kashmir killed three soldiers and three suspected rebels, even as firing from across the border injured an Indian soldier, officials said.
India accuses Pakistan of training Muslim militants in the disputed region, which both countries lay claim to. Pakistan disputes that. The region lies at the heart of much of the tension between the countries.
New Delhi has also demanded Pakistan crack down on those behind the Mumbai attack and other violence against India as a precondition for restarting serious peace talks. While Pakistan is trying seven men on charges they planned and carried out the Mumbai attacks, the militant network blamed for the assault continues to operate relatively freely in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
In a speech in London this week, Rao said Pakistan must first take effective action against groups calling for jihad against India and ``act decisively to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism on its territory.' At the same time, Indian officials have worked to keep tensions low. One day after the talks were announced two weeks ago, a package bomb killed 15 people at a cafe in the Indian city of Pune in the first major attack here since the Mumbai
Despite accusations from the opposition that Pakistani militants were involved, the government has refused to point fingers, saying the investigation is ongoing. Both sides hope the meeting will at least lead to further discussions between the two nations. ``We want the process of engagement to continue,' said Bashir, the Pakistani foreign secretary.