Islamabad, July 13, IRNA,Pakistan's Foreign Office on Wednesday hastened to clarify reported remarks of Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on the Mumbai bomb blasts that evoked a caustic reaction from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) earlier in the day.

According to the daily `Dawn', a statement issued by the Foreign Office's spokesperson said the foreign minister had not drawn any link between the Mumbai bomb blasts and the Kashmir dispute in an interview with a foreign news agency.

At no stage during the interview did the foreign minister talk about a connection between the Mumbai terrorist attack and the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, the Foreign Office spokesperson said, adding that the foreign minister's remarks had been misreported.

The foreign minister had emphatically and unequivocally condemned the terrorist attack in Mumbai yesterday, the spokesperson said.

According to the spokesperson, the foreign minister was speaking in another context by referring to the Indo-Pakistan peace process which, he said, has led to a number of confidence-building measures being put in place and improved the atmosphere surrounding the two countries.

According to the spokesperson, the message the foreign minister wanted to convey was that latest developments, in the backdrop of all issues facing the two countries, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, suggested the time was ripe for resolving these issues.

Rejecting Indian allegations the infrastructure of terrorism was firmly on Pakistani soil and in Azad Kashmir as "baseless," the spokesperson asserted taht Pakistan does not tolerate terrorism and is in the forefront of international efforts to fight this menace.