The United States has said that it supports direct dialogue between Pakistan and India on “issues of concern”, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Thursday.

At his daily news briefing in Washington on Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said “As we have long said, we support direct dialogue between Pakistan and India on issues of concern. That has long been our position."

The response came after a question was raised regarding Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's recent statement on "willingness to talk with India". Addressing the opening ceremony of the Mineral Summit in Islamabad on Monday, PM Shehbaz Sharif had said that to build the nation they are ready to talk with the neighbours. "With our neighbours, we are prepared to talk to them, provided that the neighbour is serious to talk on serious matters on the table because war is no more an option. Pakistan is a nuclear power, not as an aggressor but for our defence purposes. We had three wars fought in the last 75 years. And what happened is it generates more poverty, unemployment and lack of resources to finance, education, health and well-being of the people," PM Shehbaz had said.

In response to a question about possibility of disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan, Miller reiterated that the United States does not take positions of supporting ‘one candidate or another in other countries’. However, the spokesperson said, the country supports free, open and fair elections in a country. “We do not take positions on behalf of the United States supporting one candidate or another in other countries. We support free and open and fair elections,” Miller said.