ISLAMABAD, April 28: Pakistan on Monday expressed the hope that India would follow up talks’ offer made by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with concrete measures so that dialogue between the two countries could start in the near future.

Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Aziz Ahmed Khan, the foreign office spokesman, said: “We remain positive that concrete measures would come forward and India would also agree that dialogue starts as soon as possible and we hope that it will start very soon.”

He, however, said that Pakistan had not received any offer of dialogue from the official channel.

Mr Khan said Pakistan continued to maintain the position that the “only solution to the Kashmir problem was through dialogue and through negotiation” and added “the sooner they started, the better it would be”. He hoped India would come forward with concrete measures to open dialogue and said Islamabad would respond positively to it.

Asked about the recent India-China efforts to mend fences after the Indian defence minister’s visit to Beijing last week and a planned visit of the Indian prime minister to China next month, he said the strong ties between China and Pakistan would never be vitiated as a result of Beijing’s relations with any third country. The spokesman expressed the hope that improved China-India ties might augur well for reduction of tension in the subcontinent and benefit people of the region.

He described the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan as excellent, and said that during President Hamid Karzai’s recent visit to Islamabad, the two sides had held discussions on economic and political issues.

Islamabad, he said, assured the Afghan leader that Pakistan stood firmly in the fight against terrorism in the area and denied presence of Mulla Omar or his associates on Pakistani soil.

He said US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s interview with an Indian TV channel last week which seemed to suggest that Washington wanted more action by Pakistan to stop alleged incursions into held Kashmir, was apparently based on misinformation and propaganda emanating from New Delhi. There was no movement across the LoC from this side, he said.

The spokesman said Pakistan had often stated that physical presence of UN observers along the line of control could credibly verify the Indian allegations of cross-LoC movements.

About the expected visit of US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Islamabad in May, the spokesman said talks with the US official would cover bilateral relations, regional issues, the situation in Kashmir and relations with India. The visit will offer a good opportunity to brief him on Islamabad’s views on all these issues, he said.

Replying to a question about the reported desire of Farooq Abdullah, a former chief minister of occupied Kashmir, to visit Pakistan on a peace mission, the spokesman rejected such a request, saying that during Farooq Abdullah’s tenure as CM, the Kashmiris had to endure “maximum atrocities. He said Mr Abdullah would never be allowed to visit unless he apologized to the people of Kashmir. If they forgave him, the spokesman said, it was perhaps possible to let him enter Pakistan as a member of a delegation led by the APHC.

Responding to questions on Pakistan’s willingness to allow inspection of a fertilizer plant by a UN team, the spokesman said as a signatory to the UN convention on chemical weapons, Islamabad had no objection to the routine inspection by the UN team on Tuesday (April 29). The site of the fertilizer plant had been indicated by Pakistan which had pledged non-production of chemical weapons under the UN convention. He said a team had reached Baghdad to assess the situation there.