Pak for resolving all issues with India: Foreign Minister Khar said

Pakistan is willing to resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir with India, with which it is engaged in a "substantive dialouge" process that it hopes should be "uninterrupted", Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said.

Khar was addressing the 193-member UN body on behalf of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who could not attend the 66th session due to floods in Pakistan.

The 34-year old Foreign Minister said Pakistan is reaching out to its "immediate neighbours" with a "sincere "desire to join hands and bring about "durable peace and development, by a win-win approach.

"I am happy to note that both Pakistan and India aren ow engaged in a substantive dialogue process. A dialogue process that we in Pakistan hope will be uninterrupted and uninterruptable.

We certainly intend to make this engagement fruitful and premise it on the promise of a mutually rewarding enterprise that would enable us to optimally avail the complementarities that exist," she said in her maiden speech.

Khar said Pakistan looks forward to "resolving all outstanding issues including Kashmir," which is among the oldest on the United Nations agenda and has been the subject of several Security Council resolutions.

"A peaceful resolution that accords fully with the aspirations of the Kashmiris is in dispensable for durable stability as is the need for safe guarding of their fundamental human rights," she said, adding that Pakistan will "support" the human rights of Kashmir is.

Khar further said the reality of a "nuclearised" South Asia imposes on Pakistan and India the "onerous" responsibility to work together for creating mutual confidence, avoiding an arms race and enhancing strategic stability.

"We look forward to moving in this direction in the dialogue process."

She told the international audience that Pakistan attaches "highest importance" to promoting the goals of peace,security and stability in the world.

"In our own region we have relent lessly endeavoured towards creating an environment of shared prosperity and shared peace.

"A democratic, progressive and prosperous Pakistan embedded in a stable, secure and prosperous region guides the framework of our foreign policy."

"As a democratic country, Pakistan will continue to do its best for the cause of global peace and prosperity," she said.

"We will remain unflinchingly democratic. We will defeat those that seek to terrorise us," the Foreign Minister added.

Pakistan will not only work to empower women, it will also protect the weak and the vulnerable in its midst, especially minorities as well as those abroad.

She said Pakistan will overcome challenges and will be a "peaceful and prosperous society".

Japan will not turn inward after disaster: PM Yoshihiko Noda

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Friday that Japan will step up its contributions to the international community rather than "turn inward" after the devastating quake and tsunami that struck in March.

Noda said Japan could take the lead in improving nuclear safety around the world by quickly and accurately sharing what it learned from the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant triggered by the disaster - the worst radiation leak since Chernobyl.

He also promised to provide nation-building assistance in newly independent South Sudan, aid to the drought-hit Horn of Africa and to support democratization in the Middle East and North Africa. He offered a $1 billion loan for infrastructure and industrial development in that region.

"Japan is faced with numerous challenges but instead of turning inward ... Japan is intent on making better contributions to the international community and to continue its contributions to achieve a better future for the entire world," Noda told a news conference.

Noda took office three weeks ago, becoming Japan's sixth prime minister in five years. The former finance minister faces formidable challenges: reversing more than a decade of economic malaise, a crushing national debt and recovery from the quake that left more than 20,000 dead or missing and a reconstruction bill running into hundreds of billons of dollars.

Noda made his first trip abroad as prime minister to attend the UN General Assembly opening session which he addressed Friday. He met on the sidelines Wednesday with President Barack Obama.

Noda is viewed as strongly pro-US, and he described that alliance as the "lynchpin" of Japanese diplomacy.

But he also said Friday he would seek to deepen ties with China, Japan's larger neighbor which recently eclipsed it as the world's second largest economy.

Relations have long been strained between the two Asian powers. Animosity lingers over Japan's often brutal World War II-era occupation of China. Tensions flared last summer after a confrontation near disputed, Japanese-controlled islands between a Chinese fishing boat and a Japanese patrol vessel.

Noda said because problems sometimes occur between the two countries, it was important to promote relations so they can ride through the rough patches. He said he wanted to take up an invitation to visit China extended to him by Premier Wen Jiabao.

PM Manmohan Singh to address UN General Assembly today

India will make a strong pitch for comprehensive reform of the UN Security Council to create an equitable system that is reflective of current realities when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addresses the UN General Assembly on today.

Singh, who arrived here on Thursday, will participate in the high-level segment of the 66th session of the world body when he will also focus on issues like the need for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism to tackle the scourge that India has been suffering for decades.

As Prime Minister of a key emerging economy that is playing a constructive role in contributing to global economic recovery, Singh is expected to reaffirm India's commitment at the UN to continue working with other countries on furthering global economic and financial stability as well as to foster, strong sustainable and balanced economic growth.

On UN Security Council reforms, India feels that unless comprehensive reform is undertaken, the process would only be piecemeal and incomplete.

India would, along with members of the G4 (Brazil, Japan and Germany), continue to work pro-actively to maintain the momentum for Security Council reforms.

Briefing reporters on the Prime Minister's participation at the UNGA proceedings, India's permanent representative to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri expressed optimism on the world body coming out with a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) but would not fix a timeline for that.

He said that an agreed text of the CCIT was before a committee of the UN.

"My expectation is that the text will see action in the near future. I am cautiously optimistic but I am not going to be giving timelines," he said, adding India has been pushing for such a document as it was a victim of the scourge for several decades now unlike the US which experienced it only on 9/11.

Puri said a counter-terrorism committee chaired by India will meet on September 28th, when they will come up with a outcome document that will review the CTC's work of the last 10 years marking the completion of a decade of the 9/11 attacks as well as work out a vision statement for the next decade.

Against the backdrop of the recent terror attack in Delhi, India will push for an early adoption of the CCIT that will provide a global normative framework against terrorism.

Manmohan Singh will address the UN General Assembly on Saturday when he will be participating in the high level segment of the 66th session of the world body.

On Friday, he will have bilateral meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Replying to a question on China's support for India's quest for membership of the UN Security Council, Puri said it is only a matter of time before China voices its support for India.

Asked about absence of any meeting with US President Barack Obama, Puri said the fact was that Obama left a day before the Prime Minister arrived here and it was a matter of scheduling.

"It doesn't cause me any anxiety. They are going to be present at the G-20 Summit in a short while," he said.

The two leaders will have an occasion to meet on the sidelines of the upcoming G-20 Summit in France in November.