Pakistan: Pakistan and India took another step towards renewing negotiations over the Kashmir dispute yesterday when Islamabad said it had received a "positive response" from New Delhi after inviting India's Prime Minister to visit, writes Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
The Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Zafarullah Khan Jamali, met his political opponents last night to agree a negotiating position for what might be the first summit between the nuclear-armed rivals in two years.
The announcement came shortly before the arrival of Mr Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, who is travelling to Pakistan and India this week to get the talks off the ground. Intense but discreet American diplomacy has dragged the two nations from the brink of war last summer to the prospect of decisive peace negotiations.
A spokesman for Pakistan's foreign ministry said yesterday: "We want to enter into a dialogue process with a positive frame of mind." Islamabad would soon announce new measures to improve relations, he said.
He also repeated Pakistan's offer to declare south Asia a nuclear-weapons-free zone: "As far as Pakistan is concerned, if India is ready to denuclearise, we would be happy to denuclearise. But it will have to be mutual.
"Our position has been that we were forced into the situation because of Indian nuclear ambitions," he said.
India has already promised to restart flights to Pakistan and to return its ambassador. Pakistan is now likely to match the gesture.
India's hardline nationalist Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, seized the initiative 10 days ago with an offer to hold talks on the dispute. At the time he insisted that Pakistan must first stop allowing militants to fight in Indian-ruled Kashmir.
- (Guardian Service)