India-Pakistan peace talks collapse hours before start

[IceWizard]

Sat Aug 22, 2015 | 2:45 PM EDT
By C.K.Nayak, and, Asad and Hashim

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD Aug 22 (Reuters) -
Peace talks between India and Pakistan
collapsed on Saturday hours before they were
scheduled to start, as the nuclear-armed rivals
were unable to overcome deep-rooted mutual
mistrust.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and
Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif agreed to the talks
when they met in Russia last month. But the countries failed at the last minute to agree the agenda for the meeting of their national security advisers (NSAs), due to start on Sunday, with Pakistan accusing India of imposing "preconditions".

Pakistan pulled out after India's foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, said the talks would not take place if Pakistan's NSA Sartaj Aziz did not drop plans to meet separatists from the disputed region of Kashmir.

Swaraj also said India would only discuss
terrorism-related issues, whereas Pakistan
wanted a wider agenda that would, among
other things, discuss the Kashmir question.

Pakistan said "talks cannot be held on the basis of the preconditions set by India." "We have come to the conclusion that the
proposed NSA level talks between the two
countries would not serve any purpose,"
Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"It is not reasonable for India to now assume
the right to decide unilaterally that from now
onwards, other issues will be discussed after
terrorism has been discussed and eliminated."

Earlier on Saturday, Aziz said that by setting
conditions India had "virtually" canceled the
talks.

India called Pakistan's decision "unfortunate".

India and Pakistan have fought three wars
since becoming separate nations in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but rule in part.
New Delhi has for years accused Pakistan of
backing separatist Muslim rebels in India's part
of Kashmir.

Pakistan denies the allegations. In August last year, India called off planned meetings between the countries' foreign secretaries.

The prospects of the long-awaited talks had
been clouded in recent weeks by a series of
militant attacks and border skirmishes.

Swaraj said there has been 91 ceasefire violations since the meeting between the premiers.

But the divergence of talking points was one of
the main stumbling blocks: Indian official
sources had said they wanted to provide proof
that militants were getting support from over its
western border, while Pakistan wanted the talks to be broader and include issues on Kashmir.

Aziz said he was planning to present India's
NSA Ajit Doval three dossiers on what he called the Indian intelligence wing's involvement in promoting terrorism in Pakistan.
Pakistan earlier said it was never expecting the talks to lead to any breakthrough and the
purpose was only to reduce tensions between
the neighbors.


(Additional reporting by Rupam Jain Nair;
Writing by Aditya Kalra and Krishna N. Das;
Editing by Robin Pomeroy)