Declaring that Pakistan is ready to take a chance on peace with India, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Friday that both the countries have to "break away from the shackles of the past" to make peace a reality in the subcontinent.

"Let us move away from conditioned reflexes. Let us break away from the shackles of the past. Pakistan is ready to take a chance," the Indo-Asian News Service quoted Aziz as saying in an address by satellite television from Islamabad to the India Today Conclave in New Delhi .

The conclave by the country's leading news magazine is the fourth in the series and provides a forum for discussion by political leaders, diplomats, film personalities and opinion makers "aimed at charting a new course for India."

The theme for this year's conclave is "India Tomorrow: Perception versus Reality."

Describing Kashmir as the "core issue," Aziz said India and Pakistan would have to demonstrate "boldness and flexibility" to resolve the issue.

He conceded that the two countries had made progress on the Kashmir issue since they initiated a dialogue last year to resolve all outstanding issues and particularly referred to the decisions to start a bus service between the divided halves of Kashmir and to begin negotiations on a pipeline project to carry Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.

He described the decision on the bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad as "historic" and the pipeline project as a "win-win" deal for all three countries.

Source: Xinhua