UNITED NATIONS: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Saturday that Pakistan needed to show more “seriousness” to resume dialogue between the historic adversaries.

“I do want to hold bilateral talks with them, but it is Pakistan’s duty to come forward with all seriousness and create an atmosphere,” Modi said in his first speech before the UN General Assembly.

Modi questioned his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif for highlighting the longstanding Kashmir dispute in his own UN speech a day earlier.

“By raising this, I don’t know how serious our effort will be, and some people are doubtful,” Modi said.

“Instead, today we should be thinking about the victims of floods on Jammu and Kashmir,” the prime minister added, using the full name of the Indian state.

Modi reiterated his offer to assist flood victims on the Pakistani side of the divided Himalayan territory, an offer unlikely to be accepted by Islamabad amid criticism by some Kashmiris over the pace of the Indian response.

The Pakistani prime minister had a day earlier criticized India in his address to the UN General Assembly for withdrawing from planned peace talks last month over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Sharif traveled to India’s capital, New Delhi, in May for the inauguration of Narendra Modi as the country’s prime minister. The visit raised hopes of progress in the six-decade-old dispute, which has resulted in one of the world’s most heavily militarized borders. Those hopes stalled in August when India announced it was withdrawing from the planned peace talks in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, between the two nuclear-armed neighbors because of plans by Pakistan to consult Kashmiri separatists ahead of the meeting.

“We were disappointed at the cancellation of the foreign secretary-level talks by India,” Sharif told the 193 member countries of the General Assembly. “The world community, too, rightly saw it as another missed opportunity.”

Sharif has made improving relations with India a political priority despite the apparent reluctance of Pakistan’s powerful military and security establishment. Pakistan, he said, wanted to resolve the problem “through negotiations.”

Modi on an earlier occasion too has accused Pakistan of engaging in a “proxy war or terrorism” in Kashmir. The Himalayan region is claimed by both sides but has been divided since a war between the two countries following their partition in 1947 following the end of British colonial rule.

India says Pakistan supports separatist militants that cross the Line of Control, which divides Kashmir into India- and Pakistan-controlled regions, from the Pakistan side to attack Indian forces. Pakistan says India’s military is abusing the human rights of Muslim Kashmiris.

Modi invited Pakistani counterpart to his inauguration but India in August withdrew from planned talks between their foreign secretaries as Pakistan wanted to consult first with separatists in the disputed region of Kashmir.

In his U.N. address Friday, Nawaz criticized India’s withdrawal from the talks as a “missed opportunity.”

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir since independence in 1947.