Islamabad: Pakistan on July 29 said that elections in Kashmir will fail to achieve a breakthrough in its standoff with India, a day after US Secretary of State Colin Powell told both sides the polls were an ideal chance for peace.

"The elections are in no way going to solve the problem," Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told a press briefing.

Powell stressed during his weekend swing through Islamabad and New Delhi that local polls due in October in the Indian zone of the disputed Himalayan region should be seized as a chance for dialogue between the nuclear-armed arch-rivals.

"Elections can be a first step in a broader process that begins to address Kashmiri grievances and leads India and Pakistan back to dialogue," the top US envoy said after talks with the leaders of both countries.

He pressed India to deploy independent election observers and release Kashmiri political prisoners to lend the polls world credibility, saying such moves could ultimately lead to peace and reconciliation with Pakistan.

However, Khan said Islamabad had no faith in the Indian-organised elections.

"Elections have been held in Kashmir previously, they were massively rigged, they were boycotted by the Kashmiri people," he told reporters.

"These are not the first elections that are being held and we should not look at them with a very great degree of hope or anything."

The Foreign Ministry also stuck to Islamabad's position that it had no more concessions to make in easing the seven month tensions, despite Powell's statements that both sides had to do more.

"We have taken the steps that are required of us, there are no more steps for Pakistan to take," Khan said, adding dialogue was the only way forward.

Infiltrations of Pakistan-based militants into India were "not taking place", he said, despite Indian counter claims backed by Powell.