Natwar Singh, the foreign minister of the Congress party-led government, said India wanted "frank discussions" on all issues including divided Kashmir, where an insurgency against Indian rule has raged since 1989.

"We have to tell them no positive relationship can be one-sided, that we should work together without acrimony ... that the new government is looking for a constructive and creative dialogue," Singh told the Hindustan Times newspaper.

But the two countries, which launched a peace process a year ago after coming to the brink of war, entered into a dispute over what the starting point of the dialogue would be under the new government.

Singh last week highlighted the 1972 Shimla agreement, which ended the countries' third war, as a "bedrock" of bilateral relations.

India believes the agreement, negotiated by Congress prime minister Indira Gandhi, implicitly recognised the Kashmir ceasefire line, known as the Line of Control, as the border with Pakistan.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a television interview said that while he looked forward to working with the new government, talks could not begin on the assumption that the Line of Control would be made permanent.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shashank in a statement Monday said India was "somewhat surprised" at Musharraf's remarks.

"It (the agreement) provides the framework for our relations and commitment both to dialogue for resolving differences and not to take any unilateral actions," said Shashank, who uses only one name.

But he assured that India would also abide by all subsequent bilateral agreements including those signed by former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose Hindu nationalist government lost April-May elections.