India ready to look at all options for peace in Kashmir: Manmohan

"So long as Pakistan remains committed (to ending cross-border terrorism) we are willing to look at all possible ways of resolving issues including Jammu and Kashmir," Singh told the Financial Times.

"I think we are willing to look at all options to think about a new chapter and a new beginning."

His comments follow a formula outlined publicly by Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf last month to resolve the Kashmir dispute which has triggered two of the three wars between the nuclear rivals since 1947.

It involves determining the ethnic and geographic make-up of Kashmir, demilitarisation of all or some of these rmgions followed by changes to |heir "status."

"Change in status could be independent status, condominium which includes joint control, it can be UN mandate also," Musharraf said.

Musharraf withdrew Pakistan's long-held demand for a plebiscite for the Kashmiri people to decide their own fate.

India accuses Pakistan of stoking a 16-year-old insurgency against New Delhi's rule in Kashmir that has killed more than 40,000 people.

New Delhi says hundreds of Islamic militants regularly cross the border from Pakistan into Indian-controlled Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies.

Both sides are now in the midst of peace talks which started this year after coming to the brink of war in 2002.