Pakistan wants the peaceful resolution of all contentious issues with India, including Kashmir, so that it can "entirely focus" on the western border with Afghanistan to eliminate terrorism, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said today.

Gilani made the remarks during a meeting with a visiting delegation of US senators.

He briefed the Senators on various aspects of Pakistan's foreign policy, including relations with key neighbours like Afghanistan and India.

"Pakistan wants to have good neighbourly relations with India and seeks the peaceful resolution of all the contentious issues between the two countries, particularly Kashmir and water disputes, to be able to entirely focus its attention on its western border for rooting out terrorism," Gilani was quoted as saying in an official statement.

Separately, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan will approach the dialogue process with India with a "positive and constructive mindset with a view to resolving all bilateral issues," including Kashmir issue.

Briefing the Parliamentary Committee on National Security on Pakistan-India relations, Qureshi said the resumption of the peace process with India "was an important development."

Qureshi's remarks came days ahead of a meeting with his Indian counterpart S M Krishna in Islamabad on July 15. The two foreign ministers are expected to discuss the next steps in the re-engagement process between the two countries.

The foreign minister briefed the parliamentary panel on the recent foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan and said they were "exploratory in nature" and "primarily meant to prepare" the ground for the meeting between the foreign ministers.

The foreign secretary-level talks had "helped in improving the atmospherics and in laying the ground work for the ministerial meeting," Qureshi was quoted as saying in an official statement.

Qureshi's meeting with the lawmakers was part of regular consultations aimed at evolving national consensus on key foreign policy issues, the Foreign Office said.