27 October 2004	Wednesday	12 Ramazan 1425

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LONDON, Oct 26: The Secretary-General of the ruling PML, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, who is also a member of the special committee of National Assembly of Pakistan on Kashmir told a gathering of mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris here on Tuesday that both the military and the MMA , desire peace with India based on justice.

Mushahid Hussain who was speaking on Quest for Peace in South Asia on the second day of the two-day international conference on Towards Stability, Peace and Security in South Asia said that India should end human rights violation in occupied Kashmir, start reversing past wrongs and recognizing the reality of the nuclear factor agree to abide by the rules of the game.

Tuesday's first session was chaired by Lord Bill Mackenzie and Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, executive director, Kashmiri American Council, Washington DC was the moderator.

In Mushahid's opinion nuclearization of South Asia had served as a plus point because as he said the two, India and Pakistan had avoided going to full-fledged wars since they became overt nuclear powers despite the Kargil skirmish and when India mobilized its troops along the international borders in 2002.

He said nuclear capability has given the people of Pakistan the necessary confidence to negotiate peace with India without the fear of being overwhelmed by the bigger neighbour.

Describing it as the South Asian version of Cuban missile crisis of 1960s, Mushahid Hussain said that the 2002 military stand off between the two countries had made the respective governments realize that both have acquired the capacity to destroy each other.

Referring to the recent visit of some 'enterprizing' Pakistani journalists to occupied Kashmir he said these journalists had found that there was complete and irreversible alienation of the Kashmiris from India and that every one there was looking forward eagerly to the resumption of bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad.

He also referred to the Oct 23 meeting of eight former Indian army chiefs of staff following which these former chiefs had recommended to the Indian government that their Northern Command (in the IHK) could no longer take the pressure which he said was an indication that Indian policy of keeping the Kashmiris subjugated through force had become counterproductive.

He welcomed President Pervez Musharraf's proposal which mooted on Monday inviting options for solution of Kashmir issue sans the LoC and plebiscite and said the president had started thinking outside the box, a reference to the phrase used by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before he met President Musharraf in New York last month.

He said, Gen Musharraf's proposal indicated that Pakistan was prepared to go the extra mile.

Dr Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's High Commissioner to UK, started her presentation by giving a positive spin to the President Musharraf's Monday proposal and said that the president has actually offered to step back from Pakistan's maximalist position if India did the same and this he said would need to be followed by demilitarization of the region and changing the status of each of the seven regions of Kashmir.

She said LoC was no solution, but any other solution should reflect the aspiration of the Kashmiris and to start with, she added, violence should be brought to an end by both the parties.

She said the world was in a ferment, a new order was emerging and South Asia according to her was determined to play a role in this new order.

She wanted the peace process and dialogue to sustain and continue on two tracks - one, at the official and summit levels and the other on things that could be regarded as workable, practical-and at some time in the immediate future she desired to see the Kashmiris, specially the APHC involved in the dialogue.

She said India should stop arresting people in IHK arbitrarily, withdraw its troops from the IHK and allow free political activities in the disputed territories.

She also proposed reciprocal restrain on missile testing and bilateral moratorium and non-deployment of nuclear weapons.

She also warned against the talk of hot pursuit, surgical operation and limited wars as according to her in any conventional conflict the risk of nuclear war could not be ruled out.

Former foreign secretary Najamuddin Shiekh said both the UK and US had a leverage in New Delhi and had made effective use of it during the 2002 military stand off between India and Pakistan by asking their businessmen and their citizens to keep away from the region.

According to Mr Shiekh India in order to avert a repeat of such a situation had agreed to enter into peace negotiations with Pakistan but he said the international community had still not understood the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.

In this context he referred to Karl Inderfurth's book in which the author, former assistant secretary of state in President Clinton's administration, had said that India had given a big concession to Pakistan by agreeing to make LoC a permanent border between the two Kashmirs.

Shirin Mazari, DG Institute of Strategic Studies in her presentation said that Kashmir was not a nuclear flash-point but a safety valve.

She warned Russia and the US against selling to India high-tech conventional weapons and providing it access to nuclear-related technology and equipment and said that it would upset the military balance in South Asia.

She was specially concerned about India's ambitions to equip itself with NMDs.

Rubina Shaheen Wattoo, MNA and member of Special Committee of National Assembly of Pakistan on Kashmir and Prof Gregory, Department Head and Director of South Asia Strategic Unit, University of Bradford also spoke.