ISLAMABAD, May 21: A Kashmiri member of the Indian parliament rounded off his week-long trip to Pakistan on an upbeat note, praising President Pervez Musharraf’s overtures for peace with India and a settlement of the Kashmir dispute. But Abdul Rashid Shaheen of the National Conference party of Indian-held Kashmir, who returned home on Saturday, regretted he could not visit Azad Kashmir because he did not have the visa to undertake the trip. Still, he said, he wished he had “wings to fly over the mountains to reach there”.

“This problem (of Kashmir) seems to be moving towards a solution,” he told Dawn in an interview before leaving for New Delhi after attending a six-day South Asian parliamentary conference and said both sides recognised each other’s difficulties in pursuing “the path of friendship”.

He said he had talked to President Musharraf after the general addressed the concluding session of the parliamentary conference in Islamabad on Friday and conveyed to him his party’s appreciation for Pakistan’s moves to promote people-to-people contacts.

He said he also requested the president to take steps for an expeditious opening of more travel routes in the disputed state, where a bus service started last month between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar. “I am very happy to find him sincere to solve problems in the region,” he said.

Referring to the president’s remarks in Friday’s speech about the merits of finding a compromise with India, Mr Shaheen said both sides wanted to “address each other’s sensitivities rather than embarrass the other side”.

Mr Shaheen, a member of the Indian Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) from Baramula district of Indian-held Kashmir, was only a half hour’s drive away from Azad Kashmir when he stayed for five days at Bhurban, near the Murree hill resort, this week attending South Asian parliamentary conference hosted by a regional organisation of journalists.

But he could only cast longing looks at some populated mountains of Azad Kashmir’s Bagh district on the left bank of River Jhelum from the balconies of his hotel at Bhurban. “I wish I had wings to fly over the mountains and reach there,” he said.

No politician either from Azad Kashmir or the Indian-held Kashmir has yet been allowed to travel to the other side by the fortnightly Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service that started on April 7 as an important confidence-building measure in the current India-Pakistan peace process.

But Mr Shaheen, whose party is pro-India, was able to meet the president of Azad Kashmir’s ruling All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference party, Sardar Atiq Ahmed, who came to see him at Bhurban as a gesture of courtesy.

The National Conference MP said he felt an “inner connection” and a closeness of minds whenever he met somebody from Azad Kashmir during his stay.