NEW DELHI, June 23: India’s prime minister has welcomed the appointment of new counterpart in Pakistan and said he is ‘confident’ of strengthening ties between the two countries.

Pakistani legislators elected Raja Pervez Ashraf as the country’s new prime minister on Friday, seeking to end a political upheaval sparked by judges ousting then prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani over contempt charges and demanding the arrest of the first candidate to be nominated as his successor.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated Mr Ashraf on Friday.

“Our two countries will continue to make progress in their bilateral dialogue...(and) build good neighbourly relations by strengthening their cooperation in all areas for the benefit of the peoples of both countries,” he said.—AFP

Our Correspondent in Washington adds: The State Department said the United States was looking forward to working with Prime Minister Ashraf to bring the strained relations between the two countries back on track.

“We are pleased that the leadership issue appears to have been settled,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters at a news briefing in Washington.

“We obviously look forward to working with the new prime minister and hope that this will open space to continue to roll up our sleeves and get back on track with all of the things that we want to do with Pakistan,” Xinhua quoted her as saying.

Ms Nuland also said the US was ‘very concerned’ about the alleged link between the Haqqani network and Thursday’s terrorist attack on a Kabul hotel that killed at least 18 people.

The US, she said, hopes to have better cooperation with Pakistan on cracking down on the Haqqani network.

“This is at the core of this work we’re trying to do to get past the differences we’ve had on counter-terrorism, so that we can really be maximising our effectiveness together,” she said.