India, Pakistan attempt to revive dialogue ahead of Clinton visit

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Leaders of India and Pakistan meet Thursday in a major effort to thaw relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. If an accord can be reached, it would allow Pakistan to focus on the Islamist extremists on its western border who are a global terrorist menace and a threat to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The meeting between Pakistan's prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, on the sidelines of a conference in Egypt, could result in an agreement to resume talks or to work toward the resumption of dialogue. Given India's continuing concerns about terrorism originating in Pakistan, the odds are stacked against such a breakthrough.

The move, which the U.S. has pressed for, is timed just ahead of the arrival of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in India.

The November terrorist attack on Mumbai, in which 166 people died and for which Pakistan was blamed, brought the longtime rivals to the verge of war. A four-year "composite dialogue" between the two countries, aimed at resolving disputes and normalizing ties, collapsed.

Pakistani officials Wednesday dampened expectations. "There is a tall order; it is uphill. ... It's sad. I think much more work needs to be done," Salman Bashir, Pakistan's top bureaucrat in the Foreign Ministry, said in Egypt.

U.S. and other Western officials say an easing of tensions on its eastern border with India would allow Pakistan to concentrate its military presence on the lawless tribal territory used by Taliban and al-Qaida on the western border with Afghanistan. Mumbai hangs over Indo-Pakistan relations, however, with New Delhi accusing Islamabad of failing to seriously prosecute the planners of the attack and the wider "terrorist infrastructure" on its soil.

"India, as a result of pressure by the Americans, is hopefully seeing the logic of not stiff-arming us, which only plays into the hands of those who went (to Mumbai) to kill," said Zafar Hilaly, a retired Pakistan diplomat. "There has to be an announcement that dialogue will be resumed or it (the meeting) will be a failure."

After the Mumbai attack, Pakistan launched two separate prosecutions of members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the extremist group accused of masterminding the assault, and it also seized land, bank accounts and facilities belonging to the group. Pakistan's crackdown went further than anything it had done before, but it hasn't satisfied India.