KUALA LUMPUR, May 19: The time is ripe for a deal between Pakistan and India on Kashmir and the two countries should seize the opportunity to end the long-running dispute, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said on Thursday. “At the moment conditions are particularly propitious,” he told reporters during a stopover here on his way home from visits to Australia and New Zealand.
“Both leaders have to show courage and take difficult decisions and the fact there are peace constituencies in both countries should be a help to them,” Mr Kasuri said. Mr Kasuri said a major confidence-building measure in the search for a solution to the Kashmir issue would be an agreement on the disputed Siachen glacier in talks beginning on May 25.
“It is doable. I think if we have an agreement on this it will act as a major confidence-building measure. It will also help in the process of resolution of Jammu and Kashmir. “It requires just a bit of political will. The defence secretaries need to try to convince each other that their fear and apprehension is misplaced.”
GAS PIPELINE: Mr Kasuri said Islamabad regarded a $4 billion gas pipeline stretching from Iran through Pakistan to India as the easiest of several options to pipe gas to the subcontinent.
“At the moment it seems as if the Iranian (plan) is the easiest to implement,” Mr Kasuri said when asked about progress on separate proposals for gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar.
The foreign minister said Pakistan was depleting its energy reserves so rapidly that it might consider more than one pipeline.
“Previously we thought that we wouldn’t require gas for the next 20-30 years, because of our own reserves, but now it’s being depleted so fast that we need gas anyway. So I think there could be more than one at the same time.”
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently told India that Washington had concerns over the Iranian pipeline deal. The concerns are reported to stem from US opposition to Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Pakistan and India, which were looking to resolve their differences and improve relations, might jointly lobby Washington to ease its concerns over the project, Mr Kasuri said.
“India and Pakistan, after we have discussed this issue, will talk to the US government,” he said when asked how Pakistan would overcome US concerns on the Iranian pipeline.
Mr Kasuri said a decision on a long-delayed $3.3 billion pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan would depend on the result of studies to estimate available gas reserves.
Last month Afghanistan said it would guarantee the security of the pipeline, allaying concerns that had held up the project. “There’s an Asian Development Bank study which is being conducted to calculate the reserves of the field at Daulatabad and the report is likely to come soon, and depending on the report, further decisions will be taken,” Mr Kasuri said. Turkmen estimates show that Daulatabad has reserves of 1.7 trillion cubic metres, making it the world’s fourth-largest gasfield.
Officials in Islamabad had said it could meet Pakistan’s gas requirements for 30 years at a rate of up to 3 billion cubic feet per day.
PRESS CONFERENCE: Speaking at a press conference at the State Guest House after his arrival in Karachi, Mr Kasuri said Pakistan desired that the Palestine conflict should be resolved on the basis of ‘two-state theory’. This meant that the two states living peacefully side by side with each other, he added.
However, Mr Kasuri said, Israel needed to play the main role in this connection. The UN, US, EU and Russia had presented a plan which needed to be implemented, he said and added that the Palestine issue would be resolved with the support of these powers.
Mr Kasuri said Pakistan on its part would do all for the resolution of the Palestine problem. He expressed pleasure over the visit of Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Pakistan.
Replying to a question about the Kashmir issue, the foreign minister said it had become obvious that no solution could be found through war.
He said Pakistan had already desired that this outstanding issue be resolved peacefully through dialogue. He said Pakistan desired that Kashmiris sooner than later be included in the dialogue process.
He made it clear that Pakistan desired a lasting peace with India and for the purpose it was essential that the Kashmir issue be resolved. The foreign minister said Pakistan was ready to implement the accord on Siachen reached in 1989.
About the forthcoming Saarc summit, he said the host Bangladesh had given two dates in the last quarter of this year. Mr Kasuri said as a result of the efforts of the Pakistan government and its security forces, it was widely recognised that the infrastructure — telecommunication and propaganda infrastructure — of Al Qaeda had been destroyed.
He said there were individuals or small groups which could cause damage on a limited scale in some areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan but their capacity for bigger damage had been controlled. Replying to a question with regard to the Newsweek’s story, he said no Muslim could tolerate desecration of the holy Quran.
Replying to another question, Mr Kasuri said the consulate of Pakistan in Mumbai and that of India in Karachi would be opened by the end of this year and that the Khokharapar-Monabao rail route would also become functional by that time. — Agencies
