Islamabad, June 2
Claiming that the Kashmir issue holds the key to durable peace in the region, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today sought a "constructive and purposeful" dialogue with India to resolve the problem.

"Pakistan remains committed to finding a just and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions and aspirations of the Kashmiri people," Gilani said at a meeting here.

Expressing Pakistan's "political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination", he said the issue must be resolved peacefully. "Pakistan would like to engage in a constructive and purposeful dialogue with India to resolve the issue," Gilani said.

Also, Gilani asked "occupying forces" in Jammu and Kashmir to stop repression. "We hope that Indian occupying forces will cease human rights abuses and violence will come to an end.”

His comments came days after the Congress-led UPA government assumed office for the second five-year term in India. Pressing for a resumption of the composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, Gilani listed the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and commencement of cross-LoC trade as Kashmir-related confidence-building measures implemented during the past few years.

"Following the Mumbai incident, India has put a pause on the composite dialogue. Pakistan has stressed the need for engagement and resumption of the talks. We have pressed upon India that focus of the efforts of the two countries should remain on countering terrorism, which is the real issue and not mutual recrimination," added Gilani. — PTI 

Islamabad, June 2
Pakistan forces today faced "stiff resistance" while advancing towards a key Taliban stronghold in Swat valley where they killed at least 21 rebels, even as army rescued 80 students and staff members of a cadet college kidnapped by the militants in the restive tribal belt.

Troops continued their push towards the Taliban stronghold of Charbagh after clearing Jangle Tekri and the area up to Sara China. They also secured Alam Gunj, Waliabad and Gulibagh located north of Charbagh, the military said.

One soldier was killed and four were injured due to the "stiff resistance" put up by the militants, the military said.

Fourteen militants were killed and 18 apprehended during the operations in Charbagh and Alam Gunj areas. Two more were killed in exchange of fire when troops launched an operation at Kot and cleared Khairabad and Sarsanai near Charbagh.

The troops began their push towards Charbagh after capturing Mingora, the main city of Swat district, last week.The military said normalcy was returning to Mingora and efforts were underway for restoring services in the city. — PTI 

Rio de Janeiro, June 2
Brazilian military search planes found debris in the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday that could be wreckage of the missing Air France flight carrying 228 people that disappeared in a storm the previous day.

The military planes saw metallic objects and plane seats 650 km (400 miles) north of the islands of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil’s northern coast.

The area is near where the last contact was made with the Airbus A330 that took off for Paris from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night and went missing in storms about four hours later without sending any distress signal.

“The plan now is to focus our efforts to collect the debris and try to identify if they belong or not to the Air France plane,” Brazilian Air Force Colonel Jorge Amaral said at a news conference.

“We can’t really say this is part of the airplane. The command center needs to have at least one piece of the debris with a serial number to confirm that it belongs to the airplane,” he added.

The chances of finding survivors appeared close to nil and the authorities were treating the passenger list as a death toll. If none are found, it would be the worst disaster in Air France’s 75-year history and the deadliest since one of the company’s supersonic Concorde planes crashed in 2000.— Reuters