ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, said on Friday that the appointment of Pranab Mukherjee as the Minister of External Affairs was a welcome development as it opened another window of interaction between India and Pakistan.

"It is a positive development. It opens another channel of communication between our countries," Mr. Kasuri told The Hindu. "I look forward to interacting with him to carry forward the peace process."

President Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had given the process a new direction at their September meeting in Havana, he added.

Describing Mr. Mukherjee as a senior leader and a heavyweight within the Congress, Mr. Kasuri said it was good to have "someone whose words carry weight."

"I know from my own interactions with India that to have strong minister [of External Affairs] is always very useful," he said.

Some headway

Even before the July 11 Mumbai blasts,as Islamabad complained that the peace process had made no progress on "substantive issues," the Pakistan Foreign Minister several times said he missed a counterpart in India "with whom I can just pick up the phone and talk."

After the Mumbai attacks, India put thepeace process on ice, which was broken finally at Havana.

Over the last few months, Mr. Kasurispoke many times of his personal rapport with Natwar Singh, who was the External Affairs Minister until November 2005, and how this had helped the peace process at difficult moments.

Asked if he was going to pick up the phone and call Mr. Mukherjee as he used to with Mr. Singh, the Foreign Minister said he hoped "we can have that kind of relationship, it takes two to tango."

Mr. Kasuri said he tentatively plans to visit India in November for "purely personal" reasons — the wedding of the daughter of his friend and Cambridge classmate Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Union Panchayati Raj Minister.

He said he could not say if he would meet Mr. Mukherjee during the visit. "I don't know," he said.

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