Islamabad: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mohammad Kasuri has said that Islamabad was prepared to discuss the Kashmir issue bilaterally as Pakistan was serious and interested enough in initiating a composite dialogue process with India at the earliest.

According to a report in 'Online News', he said this while commenting on the recent statement of Indian External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha that India does not welcome any third party mediation or facilitation, but was prepared to discuss the issue with Pakistan on a bilateral basis.

This is perhaps for the first time that Pakistan has hinted that it would be inclined towards resolving the Kashmir dispute by holding bilateral talks with India. Till now Pakistan has always favoured third party mediation in resolving the Kashmir dispute.

Kasuri said his country was prepared to discuss the Kashmir issue in a bilateral or multilateral setting. Reiterating that Pakistan was very serious about the resumption of a composite dialogue with India as soon as possible, he said that though there was no external road map in place, the path to such a dialogue had already been crafted with great skill by Foreign Secretaries of the two countries on at least ten occasions in their meeting s between 1994, 96 and 97.

He said India and international print and electronic media would bear out the fact that the blue print for future dialogue has been agreed to by the leaders and date and time of the signing was imminent.

Kasuri, however, felt that there was nothing wrong in seeking third party mediation in resolving disputes between the two countries. He said, "I do not find anything wrong in the efforts of US, UN, European Union, China, G-8 and many other countries to try to reduce tension in South Asia." He said, "we must get over any complexes and hangovers and express our gratitude to the international community for being concerned about the fate of 1.3 billion people of South Asia".

He hailed the US' role last year when, according to him, it prevented a conflict between Pakistan and India after both the countries amassed troops following the December 13 attack on Indian Parliament. The minister said India had on several occasions in the past accepted the use of facilitation by a third party. "More recently Advani during his visit to Washington had discussed issues relating to Pakistan and Kashmir with the US Administration," he added.

"Both Pakistan and India were large countries and could not be pressurised by any country," the Pakistani minister was quoted as saying.

ANI