ISLAMABAD, May 28: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said here on Tuesday that the international community regarded terrorism as terrorism and urged Pakistan to help create an environment conducive to dialogue with India to resolve the stand-off.

Mr Straw told a press conference after a meeting with President Gen Pervez Musharraf that during the talks he had tried to secure better understanding of Pakistan’s position in the conflict and would do the same when he visited New Delhi.

Mr Straw emphasized that there could be no solution of the Kashmir issue through war and said that both sides needed to resume dialogue for which a conducive environment should be created. He said both India and Pakistan were sovereign and independent countries and it was for them to create the environment for bilateral talks.

The foreign secretary said the international community was concerned about human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Straw said that international community’s role in facilitating bilateral talks was limited and they could not be expected to do everything. He, however, did recognize the gravity of the stand-off, saying Kashmir was a long-standing dispute with considerable bitterness between the two neighbours, with a million troops under arms deployed on both sides of the Line of Control and with capability and capacity of using nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

The foreign secretary said that he would not go into details of confidential parleys that he had had with Gen Musharraf but added that the president was under no doubt about the clear action that could be taken on the “cross-border terrorism”. He recalled the bloody civil war in Northern Ireland and maintained that terrorism could not be recognized in the name of a dispute.

Mr Straw declined to offer his own comment on the Kashmir situation, saying he would not want to sit in judgment.

Asked wasn’t he impressed by the president’s declaration on cross-border terrorism on Monday, the foreign secretary said: “The crux of the matter is what is seen on the ground”.

He said he did not think that the UN resolutions of 1947-48 on Kashmir were applicable in 2002.

Agencies adds: The foreign secretary described his meeting with President Musharraf as “constructive and forthright”.

He said that all UN member states, including Pakistan, had the responsibility to bear down “effectively and consistently on all forms of terrorism, including cross-border terrorism”.

“There isn’t any doubt that Pakistan has in the past assisted what they would describe as freedom fighters, the rest of the world describes as terrorists or activists, across the Line of Control,” he said.

“What we have to try to secure here is an environment in Jammu and Kashmir in which it becomes possible for the better and easier exercise of human rights, free and fair elections,” he said.

“And that plainly requires an improvement in the security situation, and key to that is a great reduction in terrorism, including an end to cross-border terrorism.”

The British envoy said that a Russian proposal for the Indian and Pakistani leaders to meet on the sidelines of a conference in Kazakhstan next month was not raised on Tuesday, although they did discuss the issue of reviving a dialogue.