'We want to maintain very good relations with India and with (rest of) our neighbours. Our enemy is terrorism and we have to focus on terrorism', the prime minister said.
Pakistan has said the world community should nudge India to resolve all "core" bilateral issues, including Kashmir and sharing of river waters, arguing that "tension" on its eastern border is a distraction to its fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban in its restive tribal belt.
"We want to maintain very good relations with India and with (rest of) our neighbours. Our enemy is terrorism and we have to focus on terrorism... We want the world to concentrate so that with India we resolve all our core issues including Jammu and Kashmir and (differences over sharing of river) water," prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said.
"We should concentrate more on the poor people of both of our countries. Our focus should be on those real issues," Gilani said in an interview to the 'Financial Times'.
He was responding to a question on the next steps to be taken to normalise bilateral ties following the foreign secretary-level parleys held last month.
Noting that Pakistan and India have traditionally been rivals, Gilani said the tension on Pakistan's eastern border is a "distraction" for the fight against terrorism on the western frontier with Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants have found a safe haven in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan and the US has been pressing Islamabad to take more steps against them.
"The world should understand that we can concentrate more on extremism and terrorism if we (India and Pakistan) are on good relations with each other," he added.
Gilani also said that he wanted "composite dialogue with India" but it should be "meaningful."
Asked when he would meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, Gilani did not give a direct reply and noted that Singh had said that dialogue is the only way forward but "there is a lot of pressure within (India) which doesn't let him move forward."
Referring to his meeting with Singh in Sharm el-Sheikh last year, he said they had agreed that the composite dialogue should not become hostage to the Mumbai terror attacks.
Asked about the possibility of reviving former military ruler Pervez Musharraf's blueprint to resolve the Kashmir issue, Gilani said: "We think that it can be resolved when there is a composite dialogue and we can discuss all core issues."
In an apparent reference to the Indo-US nuclear deal, he said Pakistan should be granted access to civil nuclear technology for "regional stability."
"If there is discrimination, there would be no regional stability," he said.
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