Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan Shivshankar Menon on Wednesday said that the new Indian government was committed to a sustained peace process with Pakistan and to carry it forward.

"The support of the new (Indian) Government to this peace process remained undiminished," Menon assured Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri during a meeting with him here at the Foreign Office.

Menon has returned from New Delhi after consultations with the leadership of the new government.

Kasuri received the high commissioner at the Foreign Office as a goodwill gesture and to re-emphasize Pakistan's commitment to the peace process.

Kasuri told Menon that he welcomed the telephone calls from Indian foreign minister in which he had spoken very warmly and optimistically about the future of Indo-Pakistan relations.

Kasuri said he was greatly encouraged by the assurances of Indian Foreign Minister K. Natwar Singh in which Singh reiterated not only his commitment to the on-going peace process but his statement that Indian Congress government will go further than thelast government in promoting the peace process with Pakistan.

Kasuri said that President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali were committed to the peace process and he was happy to note the positive statements of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi.

Kasuri welcomed the statement by Indian Foreign Minister KanwarNatwar Singh in which he had said that India would agree to the setting up of Iran-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline Project, if Pakistan were to give international guarantees for its security.

He said Pakistan would be glad to give the required guarantees and added that the two sides could meet soon to work out the modalities in this regard.

The project, Kasuri said, would have a positive impact on the efforts of the two governments to promote economic development in their respective countries.

The Pakistani foreign minister told Menon that he was looking forward to meeting his Indian counterpart K. Natwar Singh and receiving him in Islamabad during a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) on July 20-21.

Source: Xinhua