Pakistan says no peace without resolving Kashmir issue

Islamabad, July 3 (ANI): Pakistan on Friday said that the peace in the region cannot be discussed without the resolution of the long-standing issue with India, stepping up its rhetoric on Kashmir.

"Kashmir issue can't be kept out of the bilateral talks. We can't discuss peace without (settlement of) Kashmir issue," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters at the Multan Airport.

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Qureshi said the world has come to accept that "Kashmir is disputed," a local news channel reported

He also asked India to sympathise with Pakistan's fight against terror as its army is fighting Taliban in the troubled northwest region bordering Afghanistan.

His comments came a day after the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman claimed that the very fragile situation in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be tackled through administrative and political measures as suggested by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.

Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told a weekly news briefing yesterday that it was high time India honoured its commitments to the world community and the Kashmiri people by allowing them to exercise their right to self-determination. (ANI)