India delaying talks: Sharif

ISLAMABAD, April 5: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has blamed New Delhi for the deadlock in Indo-Pak dialogue process and said peace in South Asia is possible only on the basis of a "final settlement" of the contentious Kashmir issue. "We will persevere in our efforts, motivated as we are by the imperatives of peace and development in South Asia. This can be achieved only on the basis of a final settlement of the Kashmir issue in accordance with the UN resolutions," Sharif said at a reception hosted in honour of Canadian governor general Romeo Leblanc here on Saturday. While referring to the initiation of the dialogue proccess with India last year, he said his government had taken "bold and far-reaching initiatives" in pursuit of peace and stability.

"Last year we were able to resume dialogue with India but the process remains stalemated due to India’s refusal to address the root-cause of all problems that is the Jammu and Kashmir issue, in a substantive and meaningful manner," Sharif said. He said,"Continued sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir must also end".

Sharif’s insistence on Kashmir to be the foremost agenda has once again raised doubts about the early resumption of dialogue process as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had declared in Parliament during the trust vote that the BJP-led government is ready to initiate dialogue with Pakistan but without Kashmir.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan had also ruled out the possibility of resumption of dialogue with India without Kashmir issue during an interview with PTV last week. The Indo-Pak dialogue process, which had resumed in March 1997 after nearly three years of hiatus, was stalemated during the third round of foreign secretary level talks in New Delhi in September last year when both sides disagreed over the mechanism to be followed to discuss Kashmir.