Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali will soon announce confidence-building measures to improve ties with India, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said on Monday night.
"We have taken decisions. Prime Minister Jamali will announce them. It won't be too long," Kasuri told CNN's 'Q and A' programme, adding Pakistan was 'prepared to go the whole hog'.
Giving some indications of the CBMs, Kasuri said, "We want to encourage people-to-people contacts." On India's proposal for resuming snapped air links, he said 99 per cent of the people on both sides could not afford air travel. "Pakistan is prepared to go much further by increasing people to people contacts by opening road and rail links," he said. "We will play the pitch as Prime Minister Vajpayee wants -- on the fast or slow track," Kasuri said drawing on cricket parlance.
Kasuri said Pakistan was keen that all issues should be tackled through a 'composite dialogue'. "Pakistan is prepared to do everything. We are prepared to go one more step forward."
Asked how soon the talks could be held, Kasuri said, "We don't have to re-invent the wheels. Foreign Secretaries of the two countries have held several rounds in the past and at the Agra summit Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had almost agreed on a document, which could not be signed at the last minute. So, we can go from Agra," he said.
Responding to Kasuri's remarks Minister of State for External Affairs Digvijay Singh said, "We are neither for slow nor the fast process... this time the results should be productive. We are looking for friendship and to see that everyone is happy."
To a question whether India, like Pakistan, is willing to get rid of its nuclear arsenal, Singh said if the two neighbours decide on friendship, there would be no need to raise such issues. He hoped the peace overtures will succeed. On whether India agreed that Kashmir was the 'core' issue in Indo-Pak relations, the minister said India has made it clear that it was willing to discuss all issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir. "I believe that we are progressing in the right direction."
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