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Pakistan says it is looking forward to talks with India

Pakistan looks forward to ''a sustained dialogue and real progress'' with India when their senior officials resume a suspended dialogue next month, its foreign ministry spokesman said in Islamabad today.

''We do not want to hold the dialogue for the sake of dialogue. We wish to make concrete progress,'' the spokesman told reporters at his weekly press briefing.

Prime ministers of the two mutually hostile nations agreed in a meeting in New York this week that their foreign secretaries should resume the dialogue in Islamabad on October 15 on peace and security matters and Kashmir.

In November, other officials would take up the rest of the agenda of the dialogue which the two countries had agreed to in June 1997 but did not follow because of divergent views on Kashmir.

Pakistan blamed the breakdown on ''Indian intransigence''. ''Yet we are ready to sincerely make a fresh effort,'' the spokesman said.

''Our experience of the past does not fill us with great hope, but the international community's continued engagement and active involvement, even if in the form of moral pressure on India, could ensure that India summons the political will to address the Kashmir dispute in a serious and result-oriented manner,'' he said.

UNI

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