'World was reluctant to recognise Kashmir violence as terrorism'

"Personally I have always condemned terrorism in respect of Kashmir," Blair told NDTV television in an interview recorded while he was in New Delhi Thursday for talks with Indian leaders.

"But I think there has been a reluctance -- not confined to the UK alone incidentally -- to see this terrorism for what it is ... but the world has woken up."

New Delhi has since 1989 battled an Islamic insurgency in its part of the divided Himalayan state of Kashmir in which at least 44,000 people have been killed.

India accuses Pakistan of aiding, arming and funding the Muslim rebels and of allowing them to set up training bases on Pakistani soil.

Islamabad denies the claims and charges that Indian troops are perpetrating wide-scale human rights abuses in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

The picturesque region of Kashmir, which both countries claim in full, has been the spark of two of three wars between the now nuclear-armed rivals since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

India has in the past asked Britain, the United States and other countries to use their influence with Pakistan to ensure that the "infrastructure of terrorism" is shut down, but has complained that its calls go unheeded.

Blair said: "Terrorism is not only an obstacle to progress -- and that is true whether it is Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, wherever -- The fact is, all it does is cause hatred and make dialogue impossible.