NEW DELHI, 17 June — The government yesterday reiterated its position that the state of Jammu and Kashmir was an  integral part of its territory, ahead of peace talks with arch rival Pakistan on the sensitive subject.

A Ministry of External Affairs spokeswoman was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying the official stance on the divided Kashmir state was well-established and spelled out in the constitution.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh last month said the whole of Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India, and ruled out a referendum on the future of the state.

Pakistan’s Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Friday called Kashmir an “unfinished agenda” of the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, and said “we need to resolve it amicably for the economic betterment of this region. I am going with this agenda and I hope the other side recognizes thi.”

Musharraf said he would visit India with an open mind to”change history” and hoped for a similar response from Delhi.

On Musharraf’s statement that he would go to India with an “open mind” to meet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the ministry’s spokeswoman said “how can we gauge how open a mind is until it is opened”.

Vajpayee last month made an invitation to Musharraf to hold peace talks on Kashmir, which has caused two of the three wars between the rival neighbors. No official dates for the talks have been set. Official contacts between the nuclear rivals have been suspended since mid-1999 when a border conflict erupted in the Himalayan state.

Meanwhile, there has been mixed reaction in Delhi to Gen. Musharraf’s Friday’s comments. While some critics are giving importance to his willingness to come to India with an “open mind,” others are questioning the importance he intends to give to the Kashmir issue. He emphasized that Kashmir would be the “core issue” of the discussions.

Musharraf regretted the statements made by India’s foreign minister, that the whole Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India. A spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs said yesterday, “The external affairs minister was not giving his personal views or simply making a statement. He was reiterating the provisions of the Constitution of India.”

Experts have indicated that one summit is least likely to solve the Kashmir problem. Chances are that India and Pakistan may agree to cooperate in certain economic areas. After the summit Musharraf is going to be faced with questions on what has been achieved on the Kashmir front.