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  • Umar Farooq Burki during the Director General-level talks between the Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistan Rangers at BSF headquarter, in New Delhi on Sept 10, 2015IANS
  • Director General-level talks between the Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistan Rangers at BSF headquarter, in New Delhi on Sep. 10, 2015.IANS

The Border Security Force (BSF) and the Pakistan Rangers on Thursday began high-level talks to address a range of issues, including the recent ceasefire violations on the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir.

A high-level delegation from Pakistan Rangers arrived in India on Wednesday for the director general-level talks. Pakistan Rangers (Punjab) director general Major General Umar Farooq Burki leads the 15-member team.

The truce violations are likely to be the focus of the talks, with at least two BSF personnel being wounded in firing on Wednesday in Nowgam sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistani troops also fired at Indian positions on Wednesday along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district.

The talks, one of the measures agreed upon during a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in the Russian city of Ufa in July, are significant as the National Security Adviser-level discussions scheduled for last month had collapsed due to Pakistan's insistence on bringing up the Kashmir issue.

A 23-member team led by BSF DG DK Pathak represents India in the talks. The team includes officials from the home ministry, the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Survey of India.