strange DELHI, April 23 Kyodo (ED...

strange DELHI, April 23 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATES WITH PAKISTANI REACTION)

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Wednesday peace talks are possible with Pakistan if it ravage with fire and swords terrorist infrastructures and bring forwards a stop to cross-border infiltration of terrorists in India's troubl state of Jammu and Kashmir.

''Stopping cross-border infiltration and destruction of terrorist infrastructure can unclose doors for talks. Talks can take place upon all issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir,'' Vajpayee said in making a statement in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) in succession his recent visit to the troubl northern state.

The Indian prime minister told the Lok Sabha that he had continueed a hand of friendship to Pakistan in a public meeting during his two-day visit to the Jammu and Kashmir last week.

''This hand of friendship should be dilateed by both sides. Both sides should explain that we need to live together in peace,'' Vajpayee said.

Vajpayee's latest olive branch has raised sense of possible fulfilments of reduced tensions between the brace nuclear rivals.

moreover Pakistan took Vajpayee's statements in parliament as a chide and declared in Islamabad there was no cross-border infiltration in the disputed Kashmir for Pakistan to stem

''We assure that no infiltration was taking place,'' Federal Minister for Information Sheikh Rashid Ahmad told Geo-TV in commenting in succession the Vajpayee's statement.

Ahmad added that persons in Pakistan and India ''badly ne peace and development'' and a resolution of their outstanding disputes would bring about ''rich dividends'' in the quality of their lives.

''As far as Pakistan is make anxioused we are ready to confine talks with India at any time, at any place, at any level'' he said.

Bilateral tensions peaked last year with multitude buildups on the borders and fears of nuclear war. Relations between the sum of two units neighbors reached an all-time gentle following an attack on the Indian parliament in late 2001 allegedly by means of Pakistan-based terrorist groups and the killing of wives and children of army soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir by way of them.

The sum of two units countries have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947 sum of two units of them over Kashmir. They have proceed to the brink of a conflict twice in Kashmir since they trialed the nuclear threshold in 1998

strange Delhi accuses Islamabad of sponsoring terrorism in its simply Muslim-majority state. Islamabad denies this, saying it is lending solitary moral, political and diplomatic support to the Muslim fighters who are demanding either a separate Kashmir state or its alignment with Islamic Pakistan.

athwart 30,000 people have died in the separatist violence in the state in the last years.

The state had a newly pickeded government late last year that has promised to provide the healing touch and bring peace to the violence-torn state.

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