Mood gloomy in Kashmir over India-Pakistan talks. In this photo taken on February 5, 2010, Kashmiris shout anti-India slogans near the body of Zahid Farooq, 17, after an altercation broke-out between troops and a group of boys in the Brein area of Srinagar.

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan began their first official talks since the 2008 Mumbai attacks on Thursday, a meeting that is unlikely to lead to an immediate breakthrough but may help thaw their frigid relations.

Any progress made by the two nations’ foreign secretaries — their top diplomats — may also help Western efforts to stabilise Afghanistan, where India and Pakistan have long engaged in a proxy war for influence.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and his Indian counterpart Nirupama Rao met in a colonial mansion in a heavily-guarded New Delhi neighbourhood that also houses the parliament and the presidential palace.

In Muslim-majority Indian-held Kashmir, which has been in uproar over allegations about police killings of two teenage boys and where anti-India violence has resurfaced, the mood over the talks is gloomy.

The two countries have to agree which subjects should be covered in the talks — India wants to focus on terrorism while Pakistan eyes the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir that has been the cause of two of their three wars.

“While no one is going to prejudge the outcome of the talks, terrorism will remain the focus for us,” an Indian official said.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Bashir told reporters before arriving in New Delhi on Wednesday: “It’s an open agenda and nothing is excluded.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, has warned against attempts to restrict the talks.

“We want a dialogue, but we want a meaningful dialogue …if India restricts the agenda or narrows it to its own immediate needs, then I’m afraid not much progress will be achieved,” he said during a visit to China this week.

The talks come amid a foreboding sense in India that the bombing of a popular bakery in the western city of Pune this month, which killed 13 people, may herald more attacks.

If that happened, it might make it politically difficult for India to build on whatever progress is made on Thursday.

POLICE OUT IN FORCE

Hundreds of police guarded the capital New Delhi where the meeting between the two foreign secretaries almost coincided with a hockey World Cup tournament this month that Islamist militants reportedly have threatened to disrupt.

Police kept vigil from behind sandbag pillboxes and controlled traffic around a two-storey colonial mansion in downtown New Delhi where the officials will meet.

India broke off official talks after the Mumbai attacks, saying dialogue could resume only if Pakistan acted against militants on its soil that New Delhi blamed for the carnage.

Re-engaging Pakistan was a politically fraught move for New Delhi, given strong Indian public opinion against talks, but a nudge from Washington and dwindling diplomatic options saw India reaching out to Islamabad.

Expectations from the talks were modest, and a simple pledge to continue the dialogue may be the best officials can hope for.

“Trust Deficit As India-Pak Talks Resume,” said a front-page headline in the Hindustan Times newspaper, reflecting the Indian media’s muted expectations from the dialogue.

Washington sees better India-Pakistan relations as crucial so lslamabad, not having to worry about its eastern border with India, can focus on fighting the Taliban on its western border with Afghanistan.

U.S. pressure apart, India’s willingness for dialogue with Pakistan now could be aimed at boosting the credibility of the civilian government in Islamabad in the face of military hawks in the army and its military intelligence, Indian analysts say.