Former Pakistan minister Mushahid Hussain says that if New Delhi and Islamabad 'talk to each other rather than talking at each other' as they have been doing for the past so many years, it would be better for bilateral relations and show both countries in a better light.

"I think this (talking at each other) puts both Pakistan and India and the region we belong to in a very bad light internationally. People outside the region think that all we do is whine at each other and fight against each other," Hussain, a Member of Parliament and a former information minister in the Nawaz Sharief government, told rediff.com.

"What we need is a sober, serious and substantive dialogue and discussion on all issues starting with Kashmir at various levels, including government and non-government, political and non-political and also at the levels of intellectuals and the media," Hussain said.

Talking about the Islamabad Meeting of parliamentarians and journalists from both countries slated for August 11, Hussain said that this was expected to be a good exercise.

"Dialogues not only clear the air but also provide perhaps a way forward, putting pressures on both governments to work together," Hussain, who will take part in the meeting, said just before he left US for Pakistan.

"Of course, we are adversaries, we are officially not friends. So, the criticisms of each other, the attacks on each other would go on and I think we have got to live with this situation," Hussain said. "But that does not mean we are not able to come to the conference table despite mutual recrimination," he said.

Asked if he seriously believed that India and Pakistan can come to a settlement, given mutual accusations and maximalist policies, Hussain sounded hopeful.

"There are accusations, but I do not like to see what is happening right now between India and Pakistan as just an event. I would prefer to see it as a process and a process, which involves a series of steps, initiatives that will ultimately lead to the light at the end of tunnel," he said.

"We both want a just, honourable and peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue and we have work for that," he said. In this connection he said his personal view was that both countries should treat the Kashmir problem as a humanitarian problem before treating it as a political problem or one relating to the UN resolution. "We must end the human miseries there first," he said.

Hussain, who was a participant to the recently concluded Kashmir Peace Conference in Washington DC, expressed similar views at the meeting, calling for end of human sufferings on both sides of Kashmir and opening up of channels of communications between people living on both sides.

Secondly, he said that both India and Pakistan governments should agree that whatever settlement they aim at must go beyond the status quo, which he said is no longer acceptable, either internationally or to the people of Kashmir. "I think the world is changing around us and it is better that we change with the world rather than the world imposing some diktats on us which will not be good for either country," Hussain said.

Asked as to what new ideas and thoughts Pakistan can bring to the sidelines of the SAARC meeting next year where an India-Pakistan summit is expected, Hussain said that besides the Kashmir issue, the two countries should arrive at confidence building measures.

"I would suggest that along with the politically contentious issue of Kashmir and the contours of a political settlement that the two leadership can arrive at, there should be simultaneous confidence building measures.

A lot of people are killed on either side of Kashmir because of heavy shelling. Why not the two sides agree that we would remove heavy artillery and mortar equipment from line of control from either side to 20 miles away so," Hussain said.

"Even if they fire with light infantry weapons at least villages would not be killed, property would not destroyed. I know it is a little thing but we are not fighting for properties or war all the time," he said.

As part of confidence measures Hussain would also like journalists from both countries to visit both sides of Kashmir. "This will make sure that there would be interaction and that is most important," he said.