INDIA: Talks opened yesterday in New Delhi between India and Pakistan, with the two nuclear-armed rivals discussing the possible release of hundreds of prisoners languishing in jail in both countries.
Pakistani interior secretary Syed Kamal Shah said the fate of prisoners would be "the most important issue" discussed during two days of talks with his Indian counterpart, home secretary VK Duggal.
The two officials also discussed anti-terrorism efforts and ways to stop drug-trafficking as part of the second round of the continuing 21-month long "composite dialogue" between the neighbours who have fought three wars and a border skirmish since independence in 1947.
They came close to war three years ago, after India accused Pakistan-backed militants of attacking its parliament. Islamabad denied the claim. Hundreds of Pakistanis and Indians have been caught on the wrong side of the border over the past few decades and ended up being imprisoned on suspicion of spying, although nearly all claim they accidentally wandered across the poorly defined frontier.
"The sooner they go home, the better," Mr Shah said. "We have come with a very open mind and we are likely to resolve the issue," he said.
The two officials will issue a formal statement at the end of their talks today.
Meanwhile, the leaders of India and Pakistan will hold talks in New York on September 14th to review their peace process, Prime minister Manmohan Singh said during a visit to the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday.
"The dialogue is on with Pakistan. What result it will have, it is not possible for me to say now," Mr Singh said, adding that he may be able to "say something" after meeting Pakistan's president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The upcoming talks between Mr Singh and Gen Musharraf will be their first since they met in New Delhi in April and jointly declared the peace process launched in January 2004 to be "irreversible". But security officials in New Delhi said the peace dialogue between the neighbours was "drifting aimlessly".
"No qualitative breakthrough has taken place in the peace process and none is expected in the near future," said Prof Satish Kumar, security analyst and editor of India's Annual Security Digest.
Negotiations have been confined broadly to eight issues that include Jammu and Kashmir (divided between the two sides but claimed by both), cross-border terrorism, narcotics smuggling, and nuclear and conventional military confidence-building measures.
Bilateral easing of visa restrictions and people-to-people contact, river-water sharing, trade and commerce, resolution of long-standing maritime boundaries and the dispute over the 21,000ft-high Siachen glacier in Kashmir, make up the remaining issues.
India constructing a dam in Kashmir is a source of bilateral tension and is under arbitration by an official appointed by the World Bank as part of a complex 1960 water-sharing treaty which it helped broker. Islamabad claims the Bagliar dam violates the 1960 treaty, which bars India from interfering with the flow of the three rivers feeding Pakistan - the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum - but which allows it to generate electricity from them.
Pakistan fears the dam could block water from the Chenab river and deprive its "bread-basket" northern Punjab province of vital irrigation.
India says the fears are groundless but cannot proceed with the dam's construction until the dispute is resolved. The first phase of the dam was due to be completed last year.