Pakistan said on Sunday that time was ripe for progress in Kashmir, and hoped for quick agreement on starting a bus link between the two halves of the disputed territory.
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said the planned bus route, between Indian occupied Kashmir and AJK, was a crucial step in efforts to resolve the 57-year-old conflict.
"The time has now come when the leadership should be prepared to go forward with this and it would be a great pity if this opportunity were missed," he told Reuters during a visit to Malaysia.
Kasuri said he hoped Pakistan and Indian officials could overcome the main stumbling block which documents Kashmiris would need for travel across their divided homeland before the foreign ministers meet later this year.
He said the start of a bus service, promising to reunite divided families, would be in some ways the most important of a series of "confidence-building" measures (CBMs) being discussed between Pakistan and India.
Kasuri said Kashmiris on both sides of the line of control did not want to use passports and visas but might be prepared to use another form of documentation. "I don't see why it poses a problem," he said.
HUNT FOR BIN LADEN: The foreign minister expressed doubt about US intelligence report that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was hiding out in tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
"We really don't know where he is but considering his past movements it will be surprising if he is in an area where everybody expects him to be," Kasuri said.
Kasuri said relations with China remain close despite the abduction of two Chinese engineers working on a dam project in Pakistan by militants linked to al Qaeda this month.
He said he expected no change in ties with the United States if Democrat John Kerry won the Nov 2 presidential election. Pakistan is the world's only nuclear-armed Islamic state and a partner in the "war on terror"; so it would remain a key US ally, he added.
"I don't expect there will be any change in that," he said.
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