New Delhi, Oct 16: Rejecting that the peace process with Pakistan is mired in quick sand, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has said India will continue to go ahead with it but made it clear that cross-border terrorism has to end to make dialogue process meaningful and productive. "We have not been boxed into a corner. We have all our options open," Sinha said in a television programme, adding "as far as the peace process is concerned, we are going ahead with it and we will continue to go ahead with it."

Sinha said, "We are encouraging a lot of things and we are taking a number of steps.... It (the peace process) is not mired in quick sand". "We are making progress. The progress will have to be slow, the progress will have to calibrated and we will have to be patient. You can't solve the problem of five decades in five minutes. If anyone expects to do that, I would say please change your mindset," Sinha said.

"What we need with Pakistan is not one round of dialogue but a sustained dialogue over a period of time," he said, dismissing a suggestion that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had extended his hand of friendship to Pakistan under the US pressure.

However, the dialogue cannot be meaningful and productive if cross-border terrorism continues, Sinha said. Bureau Report