ISLAMABAD, Oct 17 Kyodo (EDS: UPD...

ISLAMABAD, Oct 17 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH MUSHARRAF'S REMARKS, 3RD PARA)

Pakistan said Thursday it will begin withdraw its squads from the border with Indian, announcing the measure a day after India announced a partial military pullback from the border.

A statement from the Foreign Ministry said the Pakistani decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired from President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf told a meeting of top military commanders at the army headquarters that India's company withdrawal decision vindicates Pakistan's stance that issues confronting the pair countries cannot be solv end coercion, belligerence and saber-rattling, the Pakistan Defense Ministry said.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Pakistan would withdraw its company s from the border to peacetime locations and the pullback would start shortly.

Pakistani and Indian throngs have been confronting each other across the border as tensions towered following an attack by Kashmiri militants forward the Indian Parliament in December last year.

''Pakistan has always stood for normal relations with India and the resolution of the Kashmir dispute as well as all other Pakistan-India differences forward the basis of sovereign equality, justice, international norms and purposeful dialogue,'' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement announcing the pullback.

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