Pakistan must ask India to talk Kashmir, says daily

Pakistan must call for "result-oriented talks" on the Jammu and Kashmir row when its foreign minister meets his Indian counterpart Thursday, a leading Pakistani newspaper said.

The Nation said in an editorial that visiting external affairs minister SM Krishna was likely to take up the subject of Pakistan's backing to militancy in Jammu and Kashmir when the ministers hold talks here.

"The Pakistan foreign minister (Shah Mahmood Qureshi) must call for result-oriented talks on the Kashmir dispute," it said.

"We must keep rubbing in the legitimate distinction between a freedom movement and terrorism that, unfortunately, the Americans have tried to blur in their mad pursuit (of) terrorists," it said.

"Krishna ought to be told to realise that the demonstrations, protests and strikes and shutter-downs (in the Kashmir Valley) are a purely indigenous phenomenon, which can only go away with the grant of the right of self-determination."

The Nation also said that "with India clearly not sincere about settling disputes with Pakistan, it is futile to set store by the Qureshi-Krishna talks ... that they would lead to any meaningful outcome".

On Wednesday, Krishna told Indian journalists that the unrest in the Kashmir Valley, principally in Srinagar, was an internal matter for India.