Pakistan's new Kashmir Affairs Minister Qamar-uz-Zaman Kaira on Monday said the Kashmir dispute was a "basic issue" which cannot be "set aside" and should be resolved for "better ties" with India.
"We want trade relations and people-to-people contacts with India to increase. Confidence among the people should grow. The Kashmir issue is a basic issue. We can't set it aside and we have to take it forward and resolve it," he said shortly after taking oath along with 23 other members of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani's cabinet.
At the same time, Kaira said, "We want to have good ties and trade relations with India because this is the era of regional cooperation. Without regional cooperation, no country or region can survive."
"We want good relations with India but (while) addressing our issues," said Kaira, a senior leader of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
He said the new government would move forward on the Kashmir issue and resolve it in accordance with the guidelines laid by slain former premier Benazir Bhutto.
However, Bhutto's close aide Hussain Haqqani, who has been appointed an ambassador-at-large and special advisor on foreign affairs and national security to the Prime Minister, said the normalisation of relations with India will be a priority for the new government but no "unilateral concessions" will be made.
Kaira said "the Kashmir policy was drafted by (Bhutto in the 1990s). Although there was much criticism at that time, but after that all the successive governments continued and followed that policy, more or less".
"That is the guideline for us... and we will continue in the footprints of (Bhutto's) policy and we will solve the issue of Kashmir and address the miseries of the Kashmiri people on both the sides of the border," Kaira said.
President Pervez Musharraf's regime too followed the Kashmir policy framed by Bhutto, the Minister said, adding that Pakistan wants to "solve the Kashmir issue along with other problems for better relations" with India.