India has put off peace talks with Pakistan due this week after suspicion over the Mumbai train bombings fell on Islamist militants based in that country, a top Indian foreign ministry official said yesterday. The decision came days after a series of bomb blasts in commuter trains in the country?s financial and entertainment centre killed 181 people and wounded hundreds.

Although there has been no breakthrough yet in investigations into one of India?s worst terrorist attacks, officials suspect Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, to have been behind the bombings.

?We told them the environment is not conducive,? the ministry official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He was referring to talks due to be held in New Delhi on July 20-21.

The meeting between the two countries? chief foreign ministry officials was to have reviewed progress in the peace process, launched in early 2004 after the nuclear-powered rivals went to the brink of a fourth war in 2002.

The decision to postpone the talks, however, did not mean that the peace process had been called off, the official said. ?We are still committed to making peace with them. But they have to show that they can keep their promises to end terrorism before we can move forward,? he said.

The official was referring to a pledge by Islamabad made in 2004 that it would not allow its territory to be used by anti-Indian militants fighting against New Delhi?s rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said she would not be commenting on India?s decision to put off the talks.

Pakistan has denied any connection with the Mumbai bombings and said Indian charges against its military spy agency were nothing but propaganda or speculation unless New Delhi could show evidence.

President Pervez Musharraf has offered Islamabad?s full cooperation with any Indian investigation, wherever it should lead.

Indian analysts said New Delhi had had no choice but to call off the peace talks as there was little public support for pursuing peace with Pakistan after the bombings.

But cutting diplomatic and communication links with Pakistan and mobilising its troops on the frontier as it did after a militant attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 was not an option for New Delhi, they said.

?At the end of the day, India has also to see how the rest of the global community responds in terms of putting their weight behind India?s attempts to get Pakistan to conform to its commitments against terrorism,? said C. Uday Bhaskar of New Delhi?s Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

A summit of G8 leaders in St. Petersburg, Russia, this weekend would give an indication of how much support global leaders were willing to give India, he said.

?In the meanwhile, India should put together all the evidence that we are talking about if we want to make any headway and prove Pakistan?s role,? Bhaskar said.