From Lalit K Jha Washington, Feb 15 (PTI) Pakistan is working to step up dialogue with India and to make it more result-oriented with the hope the Kashmir issue could be resolved peacefully, Islamabad's new ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman said today. "It is our intent to enhance our dialogue with India and to make it productive and result-oriented, with the hope that the Kashmir issue finds just and peaceful resolution," Rehman said, in her speech at the US Institute of Peace Â- a Washington-based think-tank. This was Rehman's public appearance in Washington after she presented her credentials to the US President, Barack Obama, at the White House recently. Pakistan is pursuing a non-intrusive peace offensive in the region, she said. "In English, this means broadening and strengthening our relationship with India, which is stepping up to our offers of multiple and sustained conversations," Rehman said, adding that Pakistan will support a peace process that is Afghan-led and Afghan owned, in real-time practice, not just as a policy platitude. "We do not consider Afghanistan our strategic backyard, as many claim we do, but we do have the highest stakes in Afghan stability since we simply cannot afford the blow-back from either a civil war there again, nor any other kind of surge into Pakistan, with its long, porous border. Our motives in the region are driven by a legitimate anxiety about the security transition in a post-US draw down timeline in Afghanistan, certainly not ambition," she said. Coming to the US at a time when the relationship between the two countries is said to be at a rock-bottom, Rehman listed out her priorities in Washington. PTI LKJ SAZ AKJ
