US for resumption of 'direct' Indo-Pak talks: Hillary Clinton

The US favours the resumption of "direct talks" between India and Pakistan and "encourages" them to proceed with the dialogue as it is in their mutual interest, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has said.

Hours before the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan held talks in New Delhi, their first meeting since the Mumbai attacks, Clinton told lawmakers that the Obama administration is in favour of resumption of direct Indo-Pak talks "which were suspended when (then Pakistan) president (Pervez) Musharraf, left office."

"With respect to India and Pakistan, we have encouraged the resumption of the direct talks," she said appearing before a Congressional panel.

"Those talks between president Musharraf and prime minister Singh had actually been quite productive, particularly in producing results on the ground in Kashmir," Clinton said in response to a question on Indo-Pak relations.

The Obama administration has "encouraged" both countries to begin a dialogue," she said. "They are going to be doing so... and we are sensitive to the concerns that they each have, that it's their issues that they have to address."

"We continue to raise it and make the case to each separately as to why it's in their mutual interest to proceed (with the talks)," Clinton said.

An influential US newspaper also reported that reducing tensions between India and Pakistan is a centrepiece of the Obama administration's foreign policy amid an expanding war in neighbouring Afghanistan. "The Obama administration, which has gently but firmly pushed the two toward talks, is less interested in the substance of their discussion than the fact that it is happening at all," the Washington Post quoted unnamed senior administration officials as saying.

"For us, the bar is pretty low," one official said. "We're looking just to get a dialogue restarted."

The US wants Pakistan to concentrate less on its problems with its giant neighbour to the east and more on eliminating the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups that are based in Pakistan's mountainous border region with Afghanistan, the Post reported.

"To persuade India and Pakistan to talk to each other, the administration has sharply increased its military and economic ties to both, and tried to take their mutual concerns seriously while convincing them that dialogue is in their own interest," it said.

Pakistan is eager for talks, and US president Barack Obama promised in December that he would help reduce tensions with
India in exchange for Pakistan's increased cooperation against insurgents, the Post said.

It claimed that India, the more reluctant participant, has been wooed and flattered by a series of senior US officials, along with a pledge to help keep Pakistan in line.