India and Pakistan announced on Wednesday that their relation was improving, providing the foundation for a renewed push at their troubled peace process.

India and Pakistan announced on Wednesday that their relation was improving, providing the foundation for a renewed push at their troubled peace process.

Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar arrived at a South Asian regional summit in the Maldives speaking optimistically of the improvements in ties achieved during talks over the last few months.

Referring to a "very positive atmosphere" between the countries, Krishna said that the "trust deficit" with Pakistan was shrinking and that they should now look at a "joint strategy" to fight terror.
"I think our relationship with Pakistan is becoming a little more stable than what it was before," Krishna said as he flew to the Maldives, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Khar, appearing briefly before reporters, also said that the environment was improved ahead of bilateral talks between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan Prime Minister.
"I can certainly say from our side that we look at this environment to have improved considerably. The trust deficit that typically existed between the two countries for many, many years has been reduced to a large order," she said.

Relations between the nuclear-armed countries hit rock bottom in the wake of the 2008 attacks on Mumbai in which 166 people were killed by militants from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) extremist group.

India broke off a slow-moving peace process after the attacks because of alleged links between the LeT and Pakistani security forces, but the two sides have since slowly rebuilt their ties through a series of summits and talks.