ISLAMABAD, Aug 7: Pakistan will never entertain any proposal to convert the existing Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir into an international border. Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said Saturday, according to reports, says AFP.

Neither Pakistan nor the people of Kashmir "will ever accept such a proposal," Aziz told The Nation daily.

He was commenting on remarks made by former Indian foreign secretary G.N. Dixit that India was ready to address the Kashmir issue if Pakistan recognised the realities on the ground.

Pakistan's media interpreted the comments, made by Dixit during a visit to Washington as special Indian emissary this month, as a broad hint that India was willing to consider conversion of the LoC into a formal border.

The LoC was delineated after a pact signed by Pakistan and India in 1972.

It divides the disputed Himalayan region between Pakistan and India, which have fought two wars over the ownership of the territory and were' recently involved in a bitter two-month confrontation in the area.

Aziz said it must be kept in mind that Kashmir was not a territorial dispute but a question of self-determination of its 13 million people who had been agitating against Indian rule since 1989.

A solution based on the LoC being accepted as an international border would totally ignore the wishes of the people of Kashmir, he said.

He said the LoC was a temporary demarcation in a disputed territory, and that the Simla agreement called for respect of the LoC without prejudice to the known positions of the two countries on the Kashmir issue.

Pakistan insists on the implementation of a 1948-49

United Nations resolutions on Kashmir which envisaged a UN-sponsored referendum in the territory for its people to choose between union with either of the two countries.

The July 4 Pakistan-United States agreement that led to withdrawal of Islamic fighters by Islamabad from key peaks on the Indian side of the LoC underlined that both sides respect the LoC.

It called for the resumption of dialogue between the two South Asian rivals for resolving all issues dividing them, including Kashmir.

A Muslim separatist campaign in Indian-administered Kashmir has claimed more than 24.000 lives since 1989.

India accuses Pakistan of fuelling the unrest. Pakistan denies the charge but vows political and moral support for the campaign, calling it a legitimate indigenous struggle for self-determination.