India-Pakistan Peace Talks Still On, Despite Mumbai Bombings

Despite the bombings in Mumbai which have killed two dozen and wounded scores of others, India’s foreign ministry said that high-level peace talks Pakistan will convene as scheduled later this month in New Delhi.

[The peace talks] are [on schedule],” India’s external affairs minister S.M. Krishna told reporters in New Delhi. “There is no change in the scheduled visits of [U.S.] Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton or the foreign minister of Pakistan.

However, the Indian government has stayed silent on whether it believes Pakistan, or entities based in Pakistan, had any culpability in the Mumbai attacks.

Meanwhile, India’s intelligence officials have started an investigation on the bombings.

Indo-Pak talks will be held this month, in ten days from now. We are not ruling out any angle. We will probe every angle, Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters in Mumbai.

“India has made it clear time and again, an atmosphere free of violence is a necessity for talking the bilateral ties forward. That is the general position.”

Chidambaram also said that India is situated in a most troubled neighborhood as Pakistan and Afghanistan are at the epicenter of global terrorism.

The opposition BJP party has already demanded that the government probe Pakistan’s possible links to the Mumbai blasts. (Indeed, the 2008 bombings in Mumbai were found to be the work of Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is now banned in Pakistan).

Indian Foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash told Agence France Presse: “We have duly noted the message of condolence from the president and prime minister of Pakistan.”

No group has yet taken responsibility for the latest assaults.