Peace process under stress, says India: Islamabad asks Delhi to stop blame-game

But he added: “We consider it important that the dialogue process should continue.”

In a separate news conference in New Delhi, visiting Pakistani Secretary Salman Bashir rejected Menon’s comments on the peace process and strongly denied Pakistan was involved in the embassy bombing.

“We must refrain from this blame-game which we have played too long and it has got us nowhere,” Bashir said

“If they share this intelligence we will ally any misgivings they have, but it’s wrong to point fingers without evidence.”

He said Pakistan was “engaged in the fight against terrorism in a serious manner.”

Bashir said Islamabad was committed to strengthening the bumpy peace process, which stalled in 2006 after of a series of bomb blasts on commuter trains in India’s commercial capital Mumbai in which 186 people were killed - an attack also blamed on Islamabad.

Menon said Monday’s talks had come at a “difficult time” in India’s relationship with Pakistan.

“In the recent past, several events have vitiated the atmosphere,” he said.

“Incidents on the Line of Control (in Kashmir), incitement of violence, some (Pakistani) leaders reverting to the old polemics - and this sequence of events culminated in the suicide attack on our embassy in Kabul.”