MUZAFFARABAD, April 17: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has appreciated the idea, floated by a four-member delegation of lawyers from occupied Kashmir, that a Pakistan-India summit should be held in Srinagar, one of the counsellors said on Wednesday.

Occupied Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association’s former general secretary, Advocate Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, told Dawn that the delegation had suggested that the president should hold a summit with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Srinagar so that the “dispute of Kashmir could be resolved on the soil of Kashmir.” He had called on the president in Islamabad the other day with his colleagues.

“Kashmiris will be the hosts to the leaders and they could attend the talks if it was convenient for both sides,” he said he had told the president.

“The president said the idea was good and he wished it to happen,” Advocate Shaheen said.

“We were encouraged by his response. He warmly appreciated the idea and reiterated his stand that he was ready to talk with the Indian leader anytime, anywhere and at any level,” he said.

“Pakistan wants peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue, which could be achieved through meaningful dialogue,” the president, according to Shaheen, told them.

Shaheen and his colleagues, Mohammad Amin Butt, Mohammad Ashraf Butt and Ghulam Nabi Hagroo, arrived in Pakistan on March 31 to attend a seminar organized by the Supreme Court Bar Association. The invitation to them was extended through the Supreme Court Bar Association of India.

They called on AJK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, National Kashmir Committee Chairman Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan and federal ministers Abbas Sarfraz Khan and Dr Attiya Inayatullah.

They addressed the bar associations here and in Mirpur.

Advocate Shaheen said the proposal had received appreciation from everyone the delegation met.

“We will put forward this proposal before Mr Vajpayee on our return to New Delhi and we wish he also gives a positive response,” he said.

“We want that there should be some beginning. Kashmir is a dispute and it should be resolved on the soil of Kashmir,” he said.

Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, who is chief organizer of Muslim Conference, led by the All Parties’ Hurriyet Conference Chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat, said he and his colleagues represented what the common Kashmiris thought.

“We have not floated this idea on behalf of any political party but on behalf of the people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

“This is the desire of the people of Kashmir. We want to mould the public sentiment into political opinion,” he said, expressing the hope that all political forces in Kashmir would endorse and appreciate the idea.

Responding to a question, he said the APHC was spearheading the freedom struggle in Kashmir and he was confident that it would positively respond to the proposal. “This is a fresh idea and they will certainly appreciate it,” he said and expressed the hope that once put into practice, it would pave the way for tripartite talks involving the Kashmiris, India and Pakistan.