Former Pak foreign minister Kasuri roots for peace with India

Former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has rooted for peace between his country and India.

Kasuri said that a peaceful environment was vital for development of the nuclear-armed nations.

"Development only takes place in peaceful environment. Pakistan and India have expanding population and there is bulge of youth in both the countries who have great expectations from their leadership, those can only be achieved in condition of peace and amity," Kasuri said in Amritsar on his way to Pakistan on Tuesday.

Referring to peace talks between India and Pakistan in 2003-04 when he was foreign minister, Kasuri said that resuming harmony between the two nations was not an impossible task.

"I will also give the entire background of the back channel (talks), so far people have been hinting at it. I will give the entire background and all the details. Why am I doing that? I am doing that so people of Pakistan and India know that it is possible to have peace between our two countries," added Kasuri.

Kasuri's forthcoming book titled 'Neither a Hawk nor a Dove' will be published later this month. The book is the first comprehensive insider's account by a Pakistani foreign minister who directly contributed in moving the peace process with India forward.

Tensions have risen between the two countries since Prime Minister Narendra Modi called off peace talks with Pakistan in 2014 August. Sporadic rounds of heavy shelling have pounded villages along a previously peaceful stretch of border in Kashmir.

The South Asian rivals, who have fought two wars over Muslim-majority Kashmir, blame each other for an upsurge in firing and shelling that started in October last year.