NEW DELHI, April 22: China and France have welcomed Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s offer to resume peace talks with Pakistan, Indian news reports said on Tuesday quoting senior officials.

They said the Pakistan-based chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Amanullah Khan had also welcomed the prospects of peace talks between the two countries.

United News of India said French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepin conveyed his country’s reaction to his Indian counterpart Yashwant Sinha in a telephone conversation in which he also “asked Islamabad to fulfil its commitments to fight terrorism.”

Mr Sinha also spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and had made a similar call to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Monday. Press Trust of India, in a dispatch from Beijing, quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao as welcoming the move as positive.

“This is a very positive step and a good gesture. I hope what he proposed will come true and this needs the efforts from both sides,” Mr Liu said in response to questions.

Asked to comment on Mr Vajpayee’s statement during his trip to Kashmir, PTI quoted Mr Liu as recalling that China’s position was that tensions between India and Pakistan should be settled through peaceful negotiations.

“We hope the two parties will demonstrate their sincerity and will sit down for negotiations as soon as possible so as to avoid the worsening of the situation,” the spokesman said.

Mr Liu’s remarks coincided with an ongoing visit to Beijing by Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes who met China’s Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and held talks on bilateral, international and regional issues.

The talks with senior Chinese leadership are expected to pave the way for a visit by Mr Vajpayee later this year.

UNI quoted Mr Amanullah Khan as saying in a statement from Karachi that if the issues between India and Pakistan were not resolved it could subject the entire South Asia to the horrors of a nuclear war.

“Given will and sincere desire on the part of India, Pakistan and the United States to solve the Kashmir issue peacefully, equitably and on the basis of 15 million Kashmiris’ wishes and aspirations, it is not, not at all, difficult job. The issue can be solved once for all within a few months,” Mr Khan said.

Saying that both Mr Vajpayee and Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Kahn Jamali had made “statesman-like gestures,” the JKLF founder-president hoped that it would not be long before these gestures were given practical shape and implemented.

However, reiterating the old line of his party, he said the only way to solve the Kashmir issue peacefully and without hurting the national egos of both India and Pakistan “is to make it (Kashmir) a fully independent country with a democratic, federal and secular system of government.”