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NEW DELHI, Feb. 4 (Dawn) - India has offered to hold foreign-secretary level talks with Pakistan, two Indian television stations said on Thursday, resuming a bilateral dialogue suspended after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
New Delhi blames the attacks, which killed 166 people, on Pakistan-based militants and wants Islamabad to act against them.
The TV stations, quoting unnamed official sources, said the talks would be held at foreign-secretary level. They did not say when the meetings might to be held.
Pakistan welcomed the offer.
“There are now signals emanating from India that they are willing to talk bilaterally,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told Reuters.
“We welcome this...if it leads to resumption of the composite dialogue.”
The foreign ministry also confirmed Thursday that India had proposed foreign secretary-level talks with Islamabad but said it was seeking clarification of the content of the talks.
“They have proposed foreign secretary level talks and we have sought clarification on the contents of the proposed talks. We are awaiting response from India,” foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told AFP.
Pakistan has been pushing for the resumption of five-year-long peace talks on a range of issues, including the disputed Kashmir region, broken off by India after the attacks.
The NDTV station quoted government sources saying that India would go into the talks with “an open mind” and discuss “all issues on the table without judging the outcome of the discussions”.
The offer to resume talks comes ahead of a visit to Pakistan by India's minister of internal security for a regional meeting this month.
Palaniappan Chidambaram's Feb. 26-27 trip is the first high-level visit since the attacks.
