India for talks with Pak from Feb. 18

New Delhi, Feb. 7: India believes Pakistan has taken some steps in the investigation of the Mumbai attacks but it needs to come clean on its support to terrorists and demonstrate its sincerity by taking action against Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed and 13 others, who are still at large.

This issue will be taken up in the forthcoming foreign secretary-level talks. India has proposed February 18 or 25 for the meeting between the foreign secretary, Ms Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart, Mr Salman Bashir.

New Delhi would have no hesitation to discuss any issue which Islamabad may want to bring up, including Balochistan.

It was suggested that the decision to invite the Pakistan foreign secretary for talks was not taken suddenly. Ms Rao and Mr Bashir were in touch since their September 2009 meeting in New York and they exchanged telephone calls in the last few months, most recently in January-end when she invited him for talks here.