NEW DELHI, 9 March 2007 — India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday peace talks with Pakistan had brought “positive results.” The nuclear-armed neighbors launched a peace process in January 2004 to improve ties, but negotiations have often been hit by mutual suspicion and allegations of supporting terrorism on each other’s soil.

However, Manmohan said the dialogue was yielding results. “We have been working purposefully for all-round improvement of relations with Pakistan,” he told Parliament. “Efforts we have made are beginning to bring positive results. We will work resolutely.” Manmohan said New Delhi wants “long-lasting peace, friendship and amity” with Islamabad, and that “peace and security in the region is the key objective of our foreign policy.”

Manmohan’s statement came a day after the two countries concluded their first meeting of a panel set up to fight terrorism jointly, amid charges by Pakistan that India was fueling a tribal insurgency in its Balochistan region. New Delhi on Wednesday denied the charges, and said it handed over to Islamabad evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in terrorist activities on Indian soil.

The joint initiative to fight terrorism was launched in November when the two sides resumed peace talks in New Delhi following July 2006 train bombings in Mumbai in which 186 people died. India said Pakistani intelligence was involved in the blasts, but Islamabad denies involvement. New Delhi, however, responded with restraint in the aftermath of the firebombing of a Pakistan-bound train in northern India last month in which 68 people were killed, and did not hurl the usual allegations against Pakistan.

Delving on India’s foreign policy, Manmohan said that while striving for friendly and mutually beneficial relations with its immediate neighbors, India’s relations with other countries, including US, Russia and China, had progressed over the past three years. With security linked to India’s rapid economic progress, “peace and security in the region is the key objective of our foreign policy,” he said.

Emphasizing his government’s “commitment” to work for welfare of Muslims and other minorities, Manmohan said that a targeted program for districts having minority concentration is being launched for their welfare. “We will not allow anyone to weaken our democratic tradition. We are committed to Constitutional values... We will fight communalism and sectarianism in all forms and its manifestations,” Manmohan asserted.

India must adopt “inclusive growth” to lift people from grinding poverty, Manmohan said, as he forecast the economy would expand by over nine percent this fiscal year. “Inclusive growth” to ensure that India’s poverty-hit masses benefit from the economic boom has become a catchword for the Congress coalition as it faces elections in the nation’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, next month.

“If we remain steadfast in this inclusive growth, we will be able to be make an impact on problems of poverty and unemployment,” Manmohan said. “We need to pursue a purposeful strategy so that the growth benefits every one,” he said. He reaffirmed forecasts that economic growth would “probably exceed nine percent” in the financial year to March 2007.

Manmohan added that the government, which was swept to power in 2004 by many voters who felt left out of India’s new affluence, was keen to ensure growth of the rural economy and the development of rural infrastructure.

He said the pace of progress in the agricultural sector was “not adequate” and “falls short of what we need.” The farm sector has grown by an average of slightly more than two percent annually for the past few years, far below the 9.2 percent growth projected for the overall economy in the current financial year.