India and Pakistan agreed that their diplomats will meet in New Delhi to discuss Kashmir and other border disputes, resuming a peace process that had stalled after bomb blasts on Mumbai commuter trains in July.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, meeting for the first time since the blasts on July 11, agreed the peace process has wider ramifications and is crucial to the stability of south Asia, according to a joint statement by the two leaders issued after their meeting in the Cuban capital Havana.

``The leaders decided to continue the joint search for mutually acceptable options for a peaceful settlement of all issues between India and Pakistan, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir,'' said the statement, issued on the Indian government's information Web site today. The meetings would take place ``shortly,'' the statement said.

Singh met Musharraf while in Cuba to attend the 14th summit meeting of the members of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of more than 100 countries that are not aligned with any major power.

India postponed a meeting of the foreign secretaries of both countries after the train blasts, which killed at least 182 people. It linked progress in the talks to Pakistan ceasing support for terrorism, a charge it denies.

The end of hostilities between the two nations hinges on a settlement of the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, which both nations claim in full while they control only parts of it.

More than two-dozen rebel groups are fighting against India's rule in Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority province in India. In the six months to June 30, at least 292 people were killed in terrorist violence in the part of the state under Indian administration.

Foreign secretaries of the south Asian nuclear neighbors, which got independence from the U.K. in 1947, will now arrange for talks to discuss mapping a disputed coastal saltpan and manning a glacial battlefield in Kashmir.

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