India, Pakistan leaders agree to kickstart peace talks

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari agreed here Wednesday to kickstart an embattled peace dialogue between the two nuclear-armed rivals, with new talks to be scheduled by year's end.

The leaders agreed that their foreign secretaries "will schedule meetings of the fifth round of the composite dialogue in the next three months," a joint statement said after the summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The composite dialogue, which has made significant progress since it was launched in 2004, has been stalled for months due to political turmoil in Pakistan. The fourth round was completed last October.

The talks since January 2004 have added more bus and train links between the traditionally feuding neighbours, but there has been scant headway on Kashmir, the trigger for two of their three wars since 1947.

Singh and Zardari also decided to launch trading between the divided zones of the disputed Kashmir region from October 21.

In their first discussions since Zardari replaced former military strongman Pervez Musharraf in August, the two leaders also called for an ongoing ceasefire to be "stabilized." More