New Delhi: Asserting his party's determination to improving Indo-Pak relations, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyer today (May 16, 2004) said the new Government would work towards ensuring an "uninterrupted" peace dialogue with Pakistan, but called for "re-engineering" of the talks process.

"The recent elections are a historic turning point. But with regard to our relationship with Pakistan, they are not a turning point in that the continuity of the peace process will be maintained," he said here at the launch of South Asian Free Media Association's quarterly magazine.

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At the function, which was attended by Pakistan High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan, Aiyer said, "There has been dialogue between the two countries in good times, when the tension level was low, but the talks would cease in times of difficulty, when they were most needed. It is important that the dialogue is uninterrupted."

"At the moment, issues are being dealt with in a segmented manner. There are separate Secretary-level talks dealing with issues related to, say, tourism and water resources. What we need is a single interlocutor on either side," he said, adding that the two countries should also have the freedom to determine what issues they want to discuss.

Aiyer, a Ministerial probable, joked that by talking on Indo-Pak relations, he was making his party colleagues "nervous". He said there was a need to "re-engineer" the dialogue process so that issues were dealt with in an "integrated" manner.