Satyabrata Pal new High Commisioner to Pak

NEW DELHI: India has named Satyabrata Pal as its new high commissioner to Islamabad ahead of the resumption of high-level peace talks between the arch rivals.   

The envoy, currently the high commissioner to South Africa, succeeds Shivshankar Menon, who took over as foreign secretary this month.   

Pal was expected to take up his new assignment shortly, the foreign ministry said.   

He has served as India's deputy high commissioner in London and as deputy permanent representative at the United Nations.   

Pal's appointment comes after New Delhi said it would revive a slow-moving peace process launched in 2004. The process stalled in July after train bombings in Mumbai killed 186 people.   

Mumbai police later said Pakistan's military spy agency and a militant outfit based in Pakistan had a hand in the bombings. Islamabad rejected the charges.   

New Delhi decided to resume dialogue between foreign secretaries after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of a summit in Cuba.