Pakistan's new government will seek the revival of dialogue with India, officials said on Friday, a decade after peace talks between the two countries were suspended.
New Prime Minister Imran Khan directed diplomats to go beyond traditional ways to normalise ties with India in the first meeting after assuming the office, two senior officials told dpa.
"Khan thinks the revival of talks with India is the only way forward for Pakistan," one of them said.
Khan, a former cricketing star, advised diplomats to employ every tool possible - including sports and culture - to connect the two countries.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Pakistan would move forward to seek the resumption of talks.
"We are not shy of engagement," Qureshi told media. "We want to make an enabling environment for peace."
The composite dialogue between the two countries was initiated by Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif with Indian premier Inder Kumar Gujral in 1997, but the talks didn't last long.
Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf restarted the talks in 2004 after years of pause.
The talks were suspended again in 2008 when 166 people were killed in a commando-styled gun-and-bomb attack in the Indian city of Mumbai, allegedly by militants from a group based in Pakistan.
Pakistani and Indian leaders have since tried to revive the talks, but no headway was made.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says Pakistan is not shy of engagement.
