14 May 2004	Friday	23 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

NEW DELHI, May 13: The new Indian government will continue to be engaged with Pakistan in peace talks, but the markedly pro-American policies of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's administration is expected to give way to New Delhi's more familiar stance of measured non-alignment , politicians and analysts said on Thursday.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the main prime ministerial hopeful, made it clear on Thursday that she would "most certainly" continue Mr Vajpayee's peace process with Pakistan.

"From the very beginning, we supported Mr Vajpayee's initiative with Pakistan," Ms Gandhi told reporters in her first encounter with the media after Thursday's verdict. "In fact, we have always been saying that a dialogue must be initiated with Pakistan. But the government of the day did not want to heed our counsel," she said.

Mr Vajpayee, in his farewell address on state television, said he had embarked on a historic peace process with Pakistan. "It is my cherished dream to start a new chapter of cooperation and peace with our neighbours, with the People's Republic of China and with the world."

Ms Gandhi's aides said the Congress would almost certainly return to its strong presence in the Middle East, vacated by Mr Vajpayee who preferred strategic ties with Israel at the cost of India's traditional ties with the Palestinian struggle.

While it was the Congress government which first established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, it had done so in consultation with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The Congress, certain to lead the next government for the first time after it was ousted in 1996, had maintained good relations with the United States and Europe, but without undermining the importance of closer ties with Russia and China.

The Congress had put its foot down when Mr Vajpayee was considering the American request for cooperation in Iraq. The Indian parliament passed an anti-American resolution in mild Hindi as a compromise with the government.

Now, with an unprecedented contingent of leftist allies expected to support the new government, and with the human rights abuse assuming scandalous proportions in Iraq, the prospects of Indian military involvement in Iraq could be remote.

"The Congress believes in reiterating its faith in the continuity of India's foreign policy as envisaged by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, which has stood the test of time," senior party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi told Dawn.

"Non-alignment in a unipolar world is not less important, but perhaps more relevant than it was in a bipolar world," he said. The party's foreign affairs spokesman and former envoy to Pakistan, J.N. Dixit said in a TV discussion that the Congress was more consistent in its policies with the US and Pakistan.

He said that during the tenure of Congress prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, there were seven summits with elected representatives of Pakistan, including prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

"By contrast, Mr Vajpayee had swung between Lahore and Kargil, and between Agra and the attack on the Indian parliament and its disastrous consequences," Mr Dixit said.

Mr Dixit listed Kashmir and nuclear CBMs as the most challenging issues between the two countries. "There would ... be continuity (in ties with Pakistan) but more importantly, there would be greater consistency too," Mr Dixit said.

"As a diplomat, I can say we started the current state of military ties with the US. We have accepted some facilitation but not mediation in Kashmir. But it is the management of our nuclear weaponization and the management of the territorial issue of Kashmir, which will be the main challenge."