BELGIUM: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf urges Indian move on Kashmir

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf urged India on Tuesday (September 12) to make early concessions to solve the decades-old dispute over Kashmir, saying he was optimistic a solution was in reach. Musharraf made the call during a visit to Brussels before a scheduled meeting this week with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana at the end of this week. After listing moments of deep crisis between India and Pakistan over Kashmir Musharraf, insisted that the moment was particularly propitious for dialogue and must not be squandered. He was speaking to an audience of European lawmakers, citing the basic desire of both leaders to achieve peace. He also urged creative thinking and more involvement from Kashmiri leaders. "The progress has been uneven. Indeed much requires to be done in regard to discussion for a settlement. However, as I have often stated, given sincerity, flexibility and courage on all sides, especially on the part of the leadership of the two countries, the objective is within reach. We need to engage in an out of the box thinking," Musharraf said. But he insisted it was India's turn to make concessions to long-standing indications from Islamabad that it no longer would insist on a plebiscite among Kashmiris over their future. A firm agreement to dispense with a plebiscite was dependent on new Indian efforts to find a compromise, he added. "Efforts for a solution had three aspects: Firstly, Kashmir related confidence building measures, confidence building and measures which could help alleviate the hardship of the Kashmiri people on both sides of the Line of Control. This was the first aspect. Second, greater interaction and involvement of Kashmiri leaders with the process because first and foremost, the issue concerns their future and all the Kashmiri leaders, across the divide and thirdly, focused discussion on the elements of a settlement," Musharraf said. The audience clapped when he said that any settlement must be agreed by the people of Kashmir, first and foremost. "In a transformed regional and international environment, the process is being sustained at different tracks in search for an acceptable settlement. And when I say acceptable, it has to be acceptable: first of all for the people of Kashmir, and then to Pakistan and India," insisted Musharraf. The Kashmir row is at the heart of a lasting dispute between the two nuclear armed rivals and a peace dialogue launched in 2004 has made little progress. More than 45,000 people have been killed since a revolt began 17 years ago in the disputed Himalayan region, claimed in full by both India and Pakistan. Recent months have seen relative calm in separatist violence.

ITN Source | September 12, 2006

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