NEW DELHI, 13 November 2003 — Waging a charm offensive on Indian soil, Pakistan yesterday offered to take two steps forward for every one step by New Delhi to advance peace between the rivals.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the most senior Pakistani minister to visit India in two years, lavished praise on Atal Behari Vajpayee and said the Indian prime minister should meet Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad in January.

“There’s such a leadership in Pakistan that if you take one step we’ll take two steps forward,” he told a packed news conference in the Indian capital.

During a 20-minute question-and-answer session to mark the end of a regional information ministers meeting, Ahmed joked and sparred with Indian reporters and praised Vajpayee’s leadership as the best chance for peace after the rivals nearly went to war last year.

“He is a bold man, he can make bold decisions,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ahmed invited Vajpayee to a regional summit in the Pakistani capital as they shook hands at the opening of the conference.

Saying he came with a message of peace, Ahmed later told reporters Musharraf and Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali saw no one in New Delhi but Vajpayee who could take the courageous steps needed.

Vajpayee has said he would attend the Islamabad summit of the South Asian Regional Association for Cooperation (SAARC), already delayed a year by a military standoff between India and Pakistan over the disputed strategic Himalayan region of Kashmir.

But hitches in the peace process had put that in doubt.

Asked whether Indo-Pak diffrences are detrimental to SAARC’s development, he replied, “From our side, there is no obstacle. If India wants, the progress can be faster.”

Asserting the need for India and Pakistan to end their hostility so that SAARC can progress, Ahmed said, “The continued hostility between the two largest countries in the region — Pakistan and India — has quite adversely affected growth of trade and economic and cultural relations in South Asia. Pakistan stands for tension-free, cooperative and friendly relations with India. It is in our mutual interest.”

Asked if Pakistan was insistent on resolving the Kashmir problem before talking about other issues, Ahmed told Arab News, “We want to talk about all issues, including Kashmir. We can and are ready to talk about them at the same time.”

Analysts say Vajpayee’s presence in Islamabad is critical to advancing the peace process he started in Kashmir in April, which was taken forward by Pakistan before bogging down over continued violence in Kashmir and the pace of progress.

Asked if Vajpayee and Musharraf would meet at the summit, Ahmed said: “It’s likely — they should meet, they can meet.”

Ahmed also said the United States would have to get involved if the five-decade Kashmir dispute with India is ever to be solved.

India considers Kashmir a purely bilateral issue and is vehemently opposed to any third-party mediation in the dispute.

“Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has asked the US president to help restore dialogue with India,” saidAhmed.

“Ultimately superpowers will step in, they will get involved in solving the problem, they will facilitate talks... US intervention is inevitable. The practical is completely different from the theoretical,” he said.

“If we dispassionately look on the history of our embittered relations one cannot escape the reality that only one issue — the non-resolution of the Kashmir dispute — has hampered the establishment of normal relations between the two countries,” said Rashid.

“Let us muster the political will to address this issue once and for all.”