ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri has welcomed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's offer of a friendship treaty but maintained that all issues, including Kashmir, should be resolved.

In an informal talk with correspondents in Lahore on Saturday, Mr. Kasuri said the `positive tone' was appreciable. "We should seriously think that why such efforts could not materialise." He said that composite dialogue being underway for the last two years had made much progress and covered many dimensions.

"Nevertheless, we should not forget that we had fought three major wars on Kashmir and had been fighting on the Siachen for 25 years. We should realise that we have to resolve all the outstanding issues including the Kashmir issue."

However, he said, in order to strengthen the peace lobbies working in both the countries, "what we can do is to go for resolving relatively more simple issues like Siachen or Sir Creek while remaining focused on discussing Kashmir."

The Minister said that he also welcomed the statement of Dr. Singh that India was not afraid of talking about the Kashmir issue.

There is a perception in Pakistan that the offer made by Mr. Singh is little more than `old wine in new bottle' but would not move forward unless there was progress on Kashmir.

The English daily, Dawn, in an editorial said, "The Indian Prime Minister's offer of a treaty of peace, security and friendship with Pakistan is a step forward in the on-going composite dialogue taking place between India and Pakistan. But some reservations are bound to be expressed about Mr. Manmohan Singh's statement that also seeks to delink the Kashmir issue from the normalisation process."

Give peace a chance: Mufti

Shujaat Bukhari writes from Srinagar:

The former Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, on Sunday urged the separatist leadership to participate in the next round table conference, scheduled for May.

The People's Democratic Party leader expressed the hope that an out of the box solution could be found to the Kashmir problem. He also made a passionate appeal to the gun-wielding youth to "give the ongoing peace and dialogue process a chance to reap results."

"I would request those holding guns in their hands to understand the present atmosphere and give peace a chance," Mr. Sayeed said in his first interaction with the media after handing over power to the Congress in November last.

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