AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
New Delhi: Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan ended two days of talks Friday and agreed to conduct a joint survey of a disputed marshland considered of little strategic value, a spokesman said.
The two rivals have met several times to work out a way to demarcate the disputed strip of marshland that separates India's western Gujarat state from Pakistan's Sindh province.
Although considered to be of little strategic value to either side, it has been the scene of heavy fighting between the hostile neighbours.
“Both sides agreed to conduct the joint survey of the Sir Creek and adjoining areas and waters between November and March 2007,” Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said.
He added that negotiations on marsh area will resume in August.
Technical experts from both countries will meet in Pakistan in August to work out the details for a joint survey, he said.
Others, however, described the talks as “fruitless.”
“Both sides have been talking of a joint survey for years but nothing tangible has come through,” said an Indian defence ministry official who participated in the two-day talks.
The discussions were part of a slow-moving peace process that the South Asian rivals launched in 2004.
On Wednesday, India and Pakistan failed to reach an agreement on troop withdrawals from the world's highest battlefield in disputed Kashmir, the 6,300-metre (20,700-foot) Siachen glacier.
The two sides also will discuss terrorism and drug-trafficking next week in Islamabad. India Friday said it will convey its concerns over spiralling militant violence in its zone of disputed Kashmir to Pakistan during those talks.
The neighbours have fought three wars since their 1947 independence from Britain, two of them over Kashmir, which both claim in full and hold in part.
