Pak wants excellent relations with India: Gilani

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan wants "excellent relations" with India even as the two countries work to address "core issues" like the Kashmir dispute, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Monday.
On the eve of the resumption of the composite dialogue process between the two countries, Gilani told a news conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh that Pakistan "expects good from India and wants to have very good relations" with its neighbour.
"Pakistan wants to maintain excellent relations with India though "core issues have to be addressed, including Kashmir as its people want the right to self-determination", he was quoted as saying by state-run APP news agency.
The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan will meet at Islamabad tomorrow to review the fourth round of the composite dialogue held last year.
Their talks will be followed by a meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Wednesday.
Gilani, who is in Egypt to attend the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, said there was no threat to his coalition government despite the PML-N's decision to withdraw its ministers from the cabinet after failing to achieve the reinstatement of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf during last year's emergency.
He said he had not accepted the resignations of the PML-N ministers as they would hopefully rejoin the cabinet very soon after the deposed judges are reinstated.
There is also no pressure on the coalition to restore the deposed judges, who would be reinstated as soon as certain modalities are worked out.