Islamabad: Ahead of his US visit, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri has said Washington should play a role in reducing conventional disparity between India and Pakistan in order to stop further nuclearisation of the subcontinent.

The world has to take into account the fact that "Pakistan has had three wars with India in the past" and the two countries also had a 10-month-long stand-off, he said on January 14.

Referring to the imbalance in conventional weapons between Pakistan and India, he said, "To stop (further) nuclearisation of the subcontinent, conventional disparity needs to be reduced," the official APP news agency reported.

Commenting on the main issues discussed during January 13 policy briefing given to President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali at the Foreign Office, he said, "We discussed the Kashmir issue...The basic foreign policy objective is that we want peace in the region and want to resume dialogue with India."

Referring to rising concern among Pakistanis based in US over the issue of registration under Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS), Kasuri said he was in touch with US officials to get Pakistanis exempted from the list.

"All we want from the US is to adopt a soft attitude towards Pakistanis," he said.

Kasuri will leave for US on January 18, 10 days before schedule. PTI