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Indian PM says ready to work with Pakistan for peace

NEW DELHI, Friday (Reuters,AFP) Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called on Pakistan on Friday to work with India to find peace, but urged Islamabad to end what he called cross-border terrorism.

"On the occasion of our independence day anniversaries, I invite Pakistan to join us on the road for peace," he said in an address to the nation from the 17th century Red Fort in the old quarter of New Delhi.

"The path ahead is rocky, there are mines, but if we work together, the obstacles will go away," Vajpayee said from within a three-sided cabin of bullet-proof glass.

"We have made some progress in normalising ties, but terrorist incidents are still going on."

"It is our policy to have peace and cooperation with all our neighbours because we want to resolve all disputes peacefully," Vajpayee said from the ramparts of the moghul-built Red Fort in the Indian capital.

"Our repeated attempts to improve ties with Pakistan are not a sign of weakness but a sign of our peaceful intentions," he said.

"There has been some recent progress in normalising ties. But terrorism is still on and our neighbour's intentions lie in the question 'is it ready to put a complete halt to cross-border terrorism?'.

"We only hope Pakistan will give up its anti-India attitude as peoples of the two nations want to live in peace," he said. Vajpayee said the huge welcome accorded to a two-year-old girl Pakistani girl, who came to India last month for heart surgery, indicated the desire for amity by people of the two nations, who have fought three wars since their 1947 independence from British rule. "I ask my friends in Pakistan we have fought for 50 years and how much more blood must we shed? We have to combat poverty, unemployment and backwardness.

"The two nations must boost commerce and economic ties, I don't understand that despite having a 2,000-kilometre (1240-mile) shared border, we conduct trade through a third nation.

"There should be more more people-to-people interactions, elected representatives must travel more between the two nations. We must install new doors, new windows and skylarks in the walls of division," Vajpayee said.

The freedom day celebrations started on a bloody note with the massacre of 35 civilians in three separate attacks in the remote northeastern states of Manipur and Tripura.

Eleven ethnic and tribal guerrilla groups have called a boycott of the celebrations in the seven northeastern states in protest against alleged atrocities by Indian soldiers sent there for counter-insurgency operations.

And in Indian-administered Kashmir, Independence Day was marked by a protest strike in the summer capital Srinagar, where security was on high alert to prevent attacks by Islamic rebels.

Tens of thousands of securitymen patrolled New Delhi and the skies over Red Fort were turned into a no-fly-zone during Vajpayee's 30-minute address, in which he underlined India's attempts to make peace with nuclear rival Pakistan. Road blocks and checkpoints were set up across the capital, sharpshooters were posted on high-rise buildings around the Red Fort and an area of 300 km (185 miles) around New Delhi was declared a no-fly zone for a few hours for the official ceremonies. Hundreds of VIPs sheltering under umbrellas and schoolchildren in raincoats gathered outside the Red Fort for Vajpayee's speech.

India and Pakistan gained their independence from British rule at midnight on August 14, 1947, but celebrate on different days: Pakistan on August 14 and India on August 15. In his independence day address on Thursday, Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali also called for both nations - which have fought three wars - to work together to end decades of mistrust.

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