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India-Pakistan row clouds summit | |
(1 day later) | |
The prime ministers of India and Pakistan are set to meet on the sidelines of a regional summit in Sri Lanka, amid a worsening political row. | |
Pakistan has denied allegations its spies helped bomb the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, and there have been renewed border tensions over Kashmir. | |
The row threatens to overshadow the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) summit in Colombo. | |
Eight nations are meeting to discuss issues including terrorism and poverty. | |
Leaders from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal and Afghanistan are involved in the talks, along with the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers. | |
'Total rubbish' | |
On Friday, Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said dialogue with Pakistan was in "a state where it hasn't been in the past four years". | |
India's Manmohan Singh will meet Pakistan's Yousuf Raza Gilani | |
"We face a situation where things have happened in the recent past which were unfortunate," he said. | |
Officials from India and Afghanistan have publicly accused elements in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of involvement in last month's Kabul embassy attack, which killed 41 people and injured 141. | |
On Friday, newspaper reports in the US quoted Washington sources levelling the same accusations against the ISI. | |
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued another denial, describing the claims as "total rubbish". | |
Tensions between Pakistan and India - Saarc's biggest and most powerful members - have also been exacerbated by continued hostilities in the disputed border area of Kashmir. | |
India has accused Pakistan of violating a ceasefire accord in Kashmir, and troops from both sides traded gunfire earlier this week. | |
Terrorism issues | |
Heavy security is in place for the Colombo conference, as fighting in Sri Lanka's decades-long civil conflict continues. | |
Tamil Tiger rebels declared a unilateral ceasefire throughout the talks - but the government rejected the truce. | |
There were reports of new military battles in rebel-held areas in the run-up to the summit. | There were reports of new military battles in rebel-held areas in the run-up to the summit. |
The key issue under discussion at the talks will be whether the Saarc countries can help each other to fight crime, including terrorism. | |
Food security and trying to improve the lot of the poor will feature too. | Food security and trying to improve the lot of the poor will feature too. |
The region is home to the one-fifth of of the world's population, but hundreds of millions of South Asians live in poverty. | |
Analysts say since Saarc was founded in 1985, the group's summits have been long on rhetoric but short on follow-up action. | |
The regional grouping has often been overshadowed by tension and hostility between India and Pakistan. | |