Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that a just settlement of the Kashmir dispute was the fundamental aspect of the ongoing peace process with India.
"Progress has been made in our composite dialogue process and we hope it will help in promoting peace and cooperation in South Asia," he said at a banquet hosted by him for the visiting Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Islamabad on Tuesday night.
Pakistan and India, which resumed their peace talks after years of tensions in February 2004, are to hold third round of the composite dialogue between January to July next year to further deliberate upon issues ranging from peace, security, Jammu and Kashmir to promotion of cooperation in counter-narcotics.
Reiterating the desire for establishing peace and stability in the region, Aziz said Pakistan was seeking resolution of all differences with India.
Aziz reaffirmed Pakistan's commitment in the global fight against terrorism but called for a holistic approach to stamp out the menace by addressing its root causes.
He said, "Pakistan is a frontline state in the war on terror and has demonstrated its commitment to eliminate this scourge by breaking back of the terrorist network in the region."
The prime minister's statement came days after President Pervez Musharraf confirmed killing of three suspected foreign militants including international operations chief of Al-Qaeda Hamza Rabia in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan region, where the security forces have been battling foreign militants and their local supporters since early this year.
President Musharraf, who made the disclosure during his official visit to Kuwait, has ordered a series of military operations in South and North Waziristan in last one-and-a-half year to track down Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives operating in the tribal belt, bordering Afghanistan.
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