Islamabad: Terming Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's offer of friendship as
the "only positive statement from India for a long time", Pakistan on April 21 said
New Delhi should come up with initiatives to resume dialogue in a "couple" of days.
In the first detailed response to Vajpayee's weekend proposal to resume dialogue,
Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said, "We have already welcomed
it. This is the only positive statement from India after a long time."
Expressing the hope that India would take "immediate steps to "kick-start" the
dialogue process to discuss all issues, he said Pakistan expected India to come up
with an initiative to resume parleys in a "couple" of days.
He said Pakistan had always favoured resumption of talks but insisted that India
should not impose preconditions, specially on the issue of cross-border
terrorism.
"As far as pre-conditionalities are concerned, dialogue can only succeed when there
are no preconditions," Khan said at the weekly press briefing.
On the issue of cross-border terrorism, he said, "We have different perception and
they have a different perception about it. The best way to sort out this matter is
by deploying neutral or UN observers...Let us sit across the table and discuss all
the problems."
Asked whether Pakistan planned any initiative to start the talks, he said, "We have
our longstanding offer of holding talks any time, at any level. India will not find
us wanting. We are even ready to start the talks tomorrow."
PTI
