Kashmir issue resolution essential for lasting peace: Pak

Islamabad, Jun 4: Heightening its rhetoric on Kashmir, Pakistan today said a "fair and just" solution to the long-standing issue with India was essential for lasting peace in the region and rejected as "untenable" attachment of any pre-conditions to the resumption of the peace process.

Attaching any pre-conditions to the resumption of parleys would be "untenable," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told a weekly news briefing.

He said that a "fair and just" resolution of the Kashmir issue was essential for lasting peace in South Asia.

Basit was responding to a question about India linking resumption of the composite dialogue to Pakistan taking action against the perpetrators of last year's Mumbai attacks.

"Without a dialogue, we can't understand each other and get on with resolving issues facing the region," he said and asserted that there was no question of any compromise on Pakistan's stand on the Kashmir issue.

His remarks came two days after Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani, in a strident anti-India statement, asked "occupying forces" in Jammu and Kashmir to stop repression.

Claiming that the Kashmir issue held "the key to durable peace in the region," Gilani had said "we also hope that Indian occupying forces will cease human rights abuses and violence will come to an end and a conducive atmosphere will be created for the final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute." PTI