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At least two army soldiers including a Lieutenant Colonel and six terrorists were killed today in clashes between militants and security forces in the restive northwestern Pakistan.

In a statement later, Islamabad rejected what it called New Delhi’s “preconditions” for the talks.

Putting the onus back on India, Pakistan Saturday said it was prepared for NSA-level talks without any pre-conditions amid continuing signs that the meeting was unlikely to take place.

Swaraj told the local media in New Delhi that Indian NSA Doval was ready to hand over fresh evidence of underworld don and mastermind of 1993 Mumbai terror attack Dawood Ibrahim’s presence in Pakistan – his latest photo, a telephone bill in his wife Mehjabeen’s...

Four Pakistani soldiers were killed and four others were injured in a rocket attack that was allegedly carried out by militants based in Afghanistan along the Pak-Afghan border, Pakistani military said on Sunday.

The curtains came down by Saturday night on the dramatic spectacle around holding India-Pakistan talks, less than a day before Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz was due to land in New Delhi, with bitter accusations and acrimony marking the exchanges.

Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said that Pakistan’s stand on the talks clearly violates the agreement signed between the two nations way back in 1998.

While the decision on the Indo-Pakistan NSA level talks was pending, separatist leaders Shabir Ahmad Shah along with two others and Bilal Lone reached the Capital to hold talks with Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz but were detained at the Delhi airport on...

“Pakistan, therefore, reiterates that the scheduled NSA level talks can not be held on the basis of the preconditions set by India”.

Pakistan said it wanted a dialogue without any precondition.

Lone is the fourth separatist from Kashmir who was detained at the Delhi airport.

But Pakistan is unwilling to relent. Hours before the talks were to begin, Pakistan said the terms India said were non-negotiable – no involving the Hurriyat in the talks and to accept by midnight on Saturday that Kashmir would be off the agenda – were not acceptable.

Pakistan’s Sartaz Aziz is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi to meet India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval on Sunday, just as both countries have upped their rhetoric over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Speaking to reporters before his departure, he said, “Today we are going to ask the people of India whether former Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, their leader L K Advani or Manmohan Singh were wrong”.

A Pakistani newspaper reported that Pakistan will stress on laying out a counter terrorism mechanism during the talks.