18 November 2004	Thursday	05 Shawwal 1425

SRINAGAR, Nov 17: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has risen above his country's traditional position on Kashmir and other parties now need to ditch their own long-held stances, a leading Kashmiri separatist said.

"We have to be ready to look into all different possibilities and different scenarios," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, 31, told AFP in an interview here. "The time has come when we need to rise above traditional positions."

Mirwaiz Farooq, head of his faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Kashmir's main separatist conglomerate, had a chance meeting with President Pervez Musharraf in Amsterdam before the Pakistani leader went public on Oct 25 with a raft of new proposals for the resolution of the decades-old dispute over Kashmir.

Included in what President Musharraf said were mere suggestions to be debated was one to demilitarize Kashmir, which is currently divided between Pakistan and India, and place sections of it under United Nations mandate or under joint control.

He also departed from Pakistan's insistence that a plebiscite be held in the Himalayan region for Kashmiris to determine their own future, saying that because India opposed such a poll other alternatives should be looked at.

"I had very frank and honest discussion with (Musharraf) and I was very impressed with the clarity and positive attitude he has towards Kashmir," said the Mirwaiz.

"We are having a leader for the first time in Pakistan who really cares about the pain and suffering of the people of Kashmir and he wants to end it. "That is why ... it's a very bold decision on his part to start something which is above the position taken by Pakistan for the past 55 years," he said.

"You need a bold person to say something new as far as peace and the resolution of Kashmir is concerned ... I think he's looking for not mere rhetoric - he's looking at something very complete, something very substantial which would really bring peace to Kashmir," he further said.

"The government of India's attitude to Kashmir has not changed in the last so many years," charged Mirwaiz Farooq, who is also the chief Muslim leader in the region.

"I think if the dialogue process is to mean anything, it is time for the (Indian government) to start looking at something new." India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their independence from British rule in 1947. The Muslim majority state, split between the two South Asian neighbours, is claimed in full by both.

Mirwaiz's faction held two rounds of talks with New Delhi early this year. Before engaging in another round, the moderates want to visit Pakistan and are in the process of applying for passports and visas.

Mirwaiz Farooq said they hoped during their visit to see political leaders in Pakistani part of Kashmir, Pakistani government officials as well as leaders of militant groups which have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir for the past 15 years at the cost of thousands of lives.

"If we are to progress on the path of peace and reconciliation it is important that those people holding the guns should be taken into confidence," he said. Asked about divisions within the ranks of Hurriyat, which has split into two factions on the issue of talks with Delhi, the Mirwaiz said he was optimistic the issue would soon be resolved.

"I think we will overcome this shortly - even the other group (headed by hard liner Syed Ali Geelani) has a realization that there is no other option but to be involved in the peace process," said Mirwaiz Farooq, once named by Time magazine as "Kashmir's last and greatest hope".

He denied claims by the hard liners his faction was 'selling out'. "There are two resolutions to the problem - one is implementing UN resolutions (on a plebiscite) and the other is what we call an 'alternative negotiated settlement' - which should be done on the basis of a tripartite dialogue," he said.

"We could (also) perhaps talk about triangular dialogue rather than tripartite dialogue - I feel this can be a way forward because India doesn't seem to be agreeing right now on a table at which there are three parties.

"So let's have a table where India and Pakistan talk, where India and Kashmiris talk and where Kashmiris and Pakistan talk." It was his duty as political and religious leader, he said, to look at alternative ways to break the impasse over Kashmir.

"I feel it is my moral responsibility; when I go to the mosque on Friday and address hundreds of thousands of people, they are looking to you with hope. "I am trying my level best to play the role of a person who will not be accused tomorrow of doing nothing. At least let us try different options." -AFP