Pakistan-India dialogue will be held as planned next month because India was endeavouring to solve its problems with Pakistan including Kashmir independent of coming elections, said Indian Minister for External Affairs Yashwant Sinha on Thursday.
"It (the peace process) has gathered a certain momentum and it will perhaps be difficult to arrest this momentum unless something unthinkable happens. We are trying to resolve our issues with Pakistan independent of elections," Sinha was quoted as saying in an interview with British daily Financial Times here on Thursday.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said earlier this week he planned to hold general elections in April.
"The constituency for peace (in India) is bigger and more vociferous than ever before," Sinha was quoted as saying.
"One of the most important developments over the last nine months is the emergence of very strong public opinion on both sides for peace and friendship," said Sinha.
Sinha confirmed that the dialogue would begin in February but said that the venue and the level at which the negotiations would be held had yet to be agreed.
The talks would 'simultaneously' address all eight issues that the two countries had agreed to discuss, including the dispute over Kashmir, he was quoted as saying.
"Nothing is beyond human ingenuity," he said in response to a question on the difficulty of solving issues between the two neighbours.
"Other countries have solved intractable issues between them. There is no reason why we should not be optimistic about this," he was quoted as saying.
"Our relationship has been prone to many accidents in the past. It is important to avoid accidents of any kind - even an unwise public statement (can do damage)," he was quoted as saying by the British daily.
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