New Delhi: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on May 8 said friendship with Pakistan should be maintained "to the extent possible".

"I have told our Pakistani friends that friends can be changed but not neighbours. We have to live here. We either live as friends or we keep fighting, making ourselves a butt of ridicule before the world," Vajpayee told Lok Sabha intervening in a discussion on Indo-Pak ties.

Asserting that internal peace depended on external peace, Vajpayee said, "We should maintain friendship with Pakistan to the extent possible."

Pleading not guilty for the failure of the Agra Summit, he said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf went back empty-handed despite putting the entire focus on Kashmir.

Rebutting the charges that the government was not adequately prepared for the Lahore and Agra events, he said, "We would not have been able to fight in Kargil successfully. Their Prime Minister had to go (after Kargil)."

The Prime Minister said despite differences of views, the ultimate objective was to maintain India's prestige and honour.

An opportunity to make friendship should not be lost, he said.

PTI