India, Pakistan to resume peace talks

India and Pakistan agreed to resume high-level peace talks yesterday, according to a joint statement that signalled a thaw in tense relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours, which have fought three full-scale wars.

The breakthrough came at the close of a regional conference in Islamabad attended by India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, which also saw meetings between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bid to revive the Taliban peace process.

"Both the countries have agreed to resume the stalled talks," said Swaraj, who met with Sharif and his foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz, adding: "We will start the dialogue process from scratch."

The dialogue will cover peace and security as well as territorial disputes, including over Kashmir, a Himalayan region that has seen India and Pakistan fight two wars since gaining their independence from Britain in 1947.

Delhi suspended all talks after Islamist gunmen attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008, killing 166 people. The attacks were later found to have been planned from Pakistan.

The countries agreed to resume the peace process in 2011 but tensions have spiked over the past two years, with cross-border shelling over the disputed border in Kashmir claiming dozens of lives since 2014. A brief meeting between Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the UN climate change summit in Paris on November 30, followed by talks between the two countries' national security advisers in Bangkok, appeared to have broken the ice.

Pakistan's foreign ministry later said the United States had also thrown its support behind the process.

Earlier, Swaraj told reporters that Modi would visit Pakistan to attend the Saarc Summit likely to be held in September 2016, in what will be the first prime ministerial visit to Pakistan from India in 12 years.