India should implement J&K troop cut, says Pak

India should demonstrate "seriousness" in implementing its announcements regarding reducing troops in Jammu and Kashmir as a confidence-building measure, Pakistan's Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit said.

He contended that India had repeatedly announced plans to reduce troops in Jammu and Kashmir "but as far as our information is concerned, such announcements were never implemented."

India should seriously try to resolve the Kashmir issue accepting it as a dispute that will have to be resolved through the composite dialogue whenever it gets resumed, he told

the media. Basit was reacting to an announcement yesterday by Home Secretary G K Pillai that there will be a 25 per cent cut in troop strength in Jammu and Kashmir as a confidence-building measure.

On bilateral dialogue, he said, after the meeting of the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan in Bhutan next month, both countries will move ahead and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will visit India. "We want the dialogue process between the two neighbours should not stop and it should move forward without any break so that long-standing issues can be resolved amicably," he said.