India, Pakistan To Hold Security Meet In A Thaw In Ties

India and Pakistan have agreed to hold a meeting between their national security advisers and to help expedite the 2008 Mumbai attack trial, India's foreign secretary said on Friday, amid a thaw in relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

The announcements followed a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of a regional summit in Ufa, Russia.

The talks came after a year of tensions between the nations, as clashes at the border in the disputed area of Kashmir intensified during Modi's first year in office.

Modi's government has adopted a tough posture on Pakistan, insisting that it show greater progress in prosecuting the members of the Pakistan-based group charged with carrying out the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.

"Both leaders condemned terrorism in all its forms and agreed to cooperate with each other to eliminate this menace from South Asia," Pakistani foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry told reporters in a joint briefing with his counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar

To ensure peace, Chaudhry said, the leaders "are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues". Islamabad has long said that Kashmir remains the core dispute with India and wants New Delhi to hold talks to resolve the issue.

On the eve of Friday's talks, an Indian border guard was shot dead by a Pakistani sniper in northern Kashmir, according to Indian officials.

Modi also accepted Sharif's invitation to attend a meeting of South Asian leaders in Pakistan in 2016, Jaishankar said. That would be a first trip by an Indian leader to Pakistan in over a decade