ISLAMABAD: Pakistan today said it had put forward a roadmap on how to revive talks with India’s political leadership, calling on New Delhi to respond to the proposal.

Foreign secretaries of the two South Asian rivals met in New Delhi last week. The civil servants agreed to keep in contact but made no progress on core disputes leaving both sides at loggerheads on how to take the dialogue forward.

“India at this point of time only wants to engage with Pakistan at foreign secretaries’ level and to have other issues discussed at a working level,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters. Pakistan would also like to involve the political leadership of the two countries in the dialogue, so “that is the crux of our proposal,” he added. “India will not find Pakistan wanting if it agrees to the roadmap given by Islamabad,” the spokesman said.

“We are not happy at the fact that India is not yet ready to come back to the composite dialogue process,” he said.

Lashkar denial

SRINAGAR: Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba on Thursday denied it was behind an attack in Kabul last week that killed 16 people, including seven Indians.

The group said it was not active in Afghanistan, in a call to AFP’s office in Srinagar. “We are not involved in any actions in Afghanistan,” a spokesman who gave his name as Abdullah Gaznavi said from an undisclosed location.