India and Pakistan held the first meeting on Tuesday of a new panel to fight terrorism and discuss intelligence-sharing, in the latest initiative in the South Asian peace process, officials said. Pakistan said it would use the joint panel to push India for information about the firebombing of a train linking the two countries that killed 68 people last month.
"The opening round went well. The two sides talked about devising a mechanism to deal with the threat of terrorism," a Pakistan foreign ministry official said after the first part of the day's meetings. "They discussed ways to share intelligence, how to prevent terrorism and if something happens how to deal with it effectively," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said earlier that the February 19 attack on the "Friendship Express" train would be raised. Most of the victims were Pakistani Muslims. "The attack will be discussed. The Indian leadership has assured us that whatever information they have by the time this meeting takes place, they would share it with us," she said. "And we expect to hear from them."
The formation of the panel was announced in November, when the two sides resumed peace talks in New Delhi following the July 2006 train bombings in Mumbai in which 186 people died. The idea was first floated in a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of an international summit in Cuba. At the time they met, the peace process launched between the two countries in January 2004 was on ice.
But with both countries taking a more measured line after last month's train attack, Aslam said that the panel was set up to prevent terrorism through mutual co-operation. "This is a mechanism which has been established to help the two countries prevent terrorist acts on ether's soil. It is a two-way mechanism and this can be used to share information to cooperate by mutual agreement," she said. "We are approaching it with a positive mindset."
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