Islamabad: Contending that a new assessment of the Indian policy needs to be made in the wake of the change of guard, Pakistan has said it is not sure whether the peace process would begin afresh or continue as agreed to by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf.

"We will have to wait to see whether it would be a new beginning or continuity of the ongoing process as the Congress leadership has not been referring to progress made beyond Shimla Pact," Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar said before Senate's Standing Committee on Foreign Relations yesterday (May 27, 2004).

Replying to questions posed by committee chairman, Mushahid Hussain, Khokhar said a new assessment of Indian policy needs to be made in the aftermath of the Congress victory, as there is a lot of confusion as what course of action would the new regime take, and where would they pick the threads.

He said the track record of Congress should be kept in mind before starting dialogue with new Government, but at the same time, acknowledged that the new Congress Government has shown a positive attitude towards resuming talks with Islamabad.

He also informed that the May session of talks between the two countries on nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs) were postponed at Indian request and now rescheduled for June. The Foreign Secretary-level talks scheduled to be held in June would be followed by the parleys between the Foreign Minister with a gap of two days, he said.

At the centre of Khokhar's assertions about the prevailing confusion, appeared to be the statement by External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, who, while taking over his assignment, said Simla Agreement of the 1972 would be the guiding factor in relations with Pakistan.

Pakistan officials admit the confusion prevailed over the new Government's silence over the January 6 joint statement between Vajpayee and Musharraf, which formed the basis for new peace process as well as worked out a roadmap to begin the composite dialogue process to discuss Kashmir and other issues with talks between Foreign Secretaries followed by a meeting of Foreign Ministers in August this year.

Khokhar in his presentation before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee observed Pakistan was clear on centrality of Kashmir and "it would remain at the heart of the process".

Asked about the role of Pakistan's secret agencies in foreign policy formulation, Khokhar observed that they do contact them but only to share important information.

Besides Khokhar, former Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar, former ambassador Tayyab Siddiqui and director general South Asian desk Jalil Abbas Jilani made their presentation along with some other foreign policy analysts.

Sattar said a ground swell of support for detente augured well for Pakistan-India relations, but stressed that a normalisation between the two countries "cannot endure without a normalisation in Kashmir".

"This unique moment provides an unprecedented opportunity to the leaders of the two countries to resolve long-pending problems and open a new chapter of normal good-neighbourly relations...to the mutual benefit of people in both countries," he said.