Islamabad: US prefers India and Pakistan to build a degree of confidence between themselves to address the contentious issues, such as evolving a verification mechanism to determine infiltration of militants across the line of control (LoC), Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has said.

The best way to address the differences over the infiltration was to achieve a degree of confidence between the two countries, he told 'PTV' in an interview after his talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on May 8.

Asked about Pakistan's proposal to have international monitors to verify the allegations, Armitage said there could be a number of mechanisms, but the most effective one could be the degree of confidence that the two sides can achieve.

He said President Musharraf had given him an absolute assurance "that nothing is happening across the line of control".

Replying to questions on proposal to have no-war pact with India and a nuclear-free South Asia, he said ultimately US would like to have a nuclear free zone, but he said, it would be quite down the way in terms of confidence building measures. There are more immediate issues, which need to be looked into first, he said.

To a question about Kashmir being the core issue, he said it may be the core issue, but for India it may be the "unrelenting hostility".

Referring to the current peace process between India and Pakistan, Armitage said atmosphere has improved on both sides on lot of other issues and clearly "Kashmir will be discussed rationally and reasonably".

He said the US was giving high importance to the initiation of the dialogue process between Pakistan and India and hoped leaders from both sides will be able to take advantage of the situation and move forward and "discuss all of the issues".

In another interview to private television channel 'Geo', he said there was no timeframe to resolve the Kashmir issue and no need for a roadmap for India-Pakistan to solve it.

Asked whether US preferred the LoC to be converted into borders between India and Pakistan, he said it was matter to be discussed and settled by the two countries themselves.

On the recent US ban on the Pakistan-based militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, he said, "We have a very rigorous process. We look at statements, violence, funding, all sorts of things and come to determine which is a foreign terrorist organisation and the criteria is met," he said.

Referring to his meeting with National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra in London prior to his visit to Pakistan, Armitage said, "We discussed not only his upcoming trip to Washington, but a general state of India-US relations and Pakistan-India relations."

Armitage said he also had talks with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief lieutenant general Ehsanul Huq in Washington on a host of issues few days ago. "We discussed the situation in Afghanistan, the situation in India and also described to him some of out activities in Iraq and latest information that we are receiving from Iraq," he said.

PTI