October 19, 2001	Friday	Shaba'an 1, 1422

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LONDON Oct 18: British prime minister Tony Blair on Thursday said Britain was trying hard to reduce tension between Pakistan and India.

He was talking to Arab and Muslims correspondent at the 10 Downing Street here on Thursday afternoon.

“The instability as regard to the dispute is there and that is one of the reason we are trying to work as hard as we can both with India and Pakistan to reduce tension there,” he said when asked to comment on the major source of tension in South Asia.

Mr Blair said, “we believe that the way that we will resolve the difficulties is through negotiations and discussion between India and Pakistan, not through violence.”

To another question, Mr Blair said, “I believe that India does recognize the need for restraint and I think it is important that we recognize too however the strong feelings” over the incident at Srinagar where innocent people died.

“And again that shows the need to make sure that we try and resolve differences that there are,” not through acts of violence, said Mr Blair.

“We are in close contact with the Indian government as we are with the Pakistani government,” said the prime minister.—APP