New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz acknowledged here on Tuesday that Islamabad and New Delhi had managed to reduce some of the "trust deficit" between them, resulting in more interaction and movement of people and goods than five years ago.

Disputes were not only being acknowledged now but also being discussed by officials from both sides, he pointed out in an interaction with Indian journalists.

Mr. Aziz said dispute resolution was the cornerstone of the improvement in the relations. "If there is a will, we are capable of moving ahead," he said, citing the Irish peace process.

He, however, refused to be drawn into the specifics of the "public and non-public" talks that were under way on Kashmir.

He also sidestepped questions on whether he considered the dispute one of the "root causes" of terrorism in the subcontinent.

"Deprivation in any form is one of the causes... but I would rather give a general answer since specifics are not appropriate at this stage," he said.

While the root causes existed, terrorism also had to be dealt with as a security issue and all countries, including Pakistan and India, should work together.

Among the areas he cited where progress had been made was energy security. "Two years ago I told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh we would unbundle the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline from other issues. Now we are negotiating the details."

Islamabad, however, would continue to link trade to "dispute resolution." "Greater trade is linked to progress in Kashmir, but the South Asian Free Trade Area presents some possibilities," he noted.

The issue of non-tariff barriers also needed to be "looked into."

Karzai's charge

Asked about Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai's recent charge that Pakistan was using the Taliban to turn his country into a "neo-colony," Mr. Aziz said: "If there is one country that wanted a stable Afghanistan, it is Pakistan."

The battle in Afghanistan was a battle to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, he said, calling for a Marshall Plan type programme to boost the living conditions of ordinary citizens.

Mr. Aziz wanted Kabul to man its border with Pakistan more effectively, crack down on drug trade and take steps to repatriate the three million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan.

Denying that he felt hurt by Mr. Karzai's remarks, he said there was a need for greater "engagement and communication" between the two governments.

On Baluchistan, Mr. Aziz said there was a reduction in the "activity of people who are disturbing law and order" in the province. Asked about the charge by some Pakistanis that India was helping to fuel the Baluch insurgency, he said: "elements there were getting help, but I don't want to say where they were getting it from."

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