COIMBATORE, March 12: India is ready to "give and take" in an effort to make peace with Pakistan over Kashmir, Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said on Friday.

Mr Advani's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made recent warming of ties with Pakistan, a central issue in its campaign for next month's national elections as the party seeks to woo moderate Hindu and Muslim voters.

The tentative peace process is just getting off the ground after the nuclear-armed neighbours came to the brink of a war in 2002. And talks over Kashmir are due to start in June, after the polls in April and May.

"Even when countries have very sharp differences on a certain issue, if they decide to abandon the course of war and say 'we will discuss and discuss and discuss, we'll try to find a meeting ground', both sides have to give and take," Mr Advani said.

"No one can take the positions they may have taken for a long time," he told Reuters in an interview aboard his campaign bus.

In a sign India might also offer more autonomy to the part of Kashmir it controls, Mr Advani said he was in favour of a "further devolution" of powers to the occupied Kashmir.

"When we enter into a dialogue with Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, we cannot disregard the unanimous resolution adopted by the Indian parliament in respect of the integrity of Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

"It is only after we talk, and we come to a point that there is something that may be tried, then we'll have to talk to the opposition also, we'll have to talk to parliament also. "But both parties must be interested in peace."

Mr Advani also played down his image as more of a hawk than Mr Vajpayee who began the peace moves.

"When you have two persons working in tandem, as Vajpayeeji and I have done, I feel that it is to the advantage of the country if the hard and soft image can be used, but they are able to take decisions together," he said.

Asked if Mr Musharraf was someone India could trust to make peace with, Mr Advani became cautious.

"Whosoever rules Pakistan, India should attempt to have a good equation with," he said. "I would think that in situations of this kind it is better to trust."

As he toured the verdant southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu this week, Mr Advani made much of Mr Vajpayee's efforts to make peace with Pakistan and his groundbreaking meeting with Gen Musharraf in Islamabad in January.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee echoed his deputy's comments.

"I have also frequently said that in this changing and fast-moving world, we cannot afford to remain shackled by history," Mr Vajpayee told a conference.

"We should be willing to look at innovative ideas for the resolution of our bilateral differences," he said, adding that boosting trade, cultural and sporting links between the neighbours would help build public support for new solutions.

In December, President Pervez Musharraf told Reuters he was prepared to set aside Islamabad's decades-old demand for the UN-backed vote and meet India half-way in a bid for peace.