How many times do we all find ourselves at a gathering addressed by a retired or serving member of our armed forces who boasts that one Pakistani soldier can take on four Indian soldiers only to be interrupted by a hawk in the audience with a correction - no, one of ours can take on not four, but five of theirs?

How many times do the history textbooks used in our schools reiterate that Pakistan has fought gloriously and won two wars against India? Our schoolchildren are never taught that we have fought only to suffer.

Today, could the Pakistan army march into Kashmir and conquer the disputed territory which most Pakistanis claim to be theirs and impose our will? The answer, of course, is no. Could we name any world power which would support us in a war against India? The answer, once again, is no. Can we hope that the moral, diplomatic and political support (which we are told is the sole aid we afford to the people of Indian occupied Kashmir) will help them in any way to gain their freedom? No. We have been on the same tack for half a century, getting nowhere, so surely the time has come to change course. Kashmir is in the blood of every Pakistani, we are told. But should it be Kashmir in our blood or Pakistan in our blood?

Now, in the world of today Kashmir is not the only conflict area. Let us take one area of conflict in the Far East, the 'Northern Territories' of the Pacific, consisting principally of four of the Kurile islands located off the north-east coast of the Nemuro Penninsula of Hokkaido, Japan - Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashiri and Etorofu. Russia occupies them, Japan claims them.

The Kuriles have been the subject of claims and counter-claims, conflict and treaties since the mid-19th century. Japan and Russia first established diplomatic relations in 1855 and national boundaries between the two were drawn. According to the Shimoda Treaty, the Kurile Islands were to belong to Russia and the island of Sakhalin was to be a mixed settlement divided between the two countries.

Niggling problems arose as regards Sakhalin and it was decided to make a clear cut division, Russia calling for a division at the 48th parallel and Japan at the 50th parallel, but neither side could come to terms. In 1875 another treaty was concluded by which Russia agreed that Japan would hand over title to the Sakhalin island to Russia and in return Russia would hand over to Japan the Kurile islands.

In 1904, Japan and Russia went to war over Manchuria and other regional interests. Contrary to world expectations, Japan was able to wage active and persistent operations, as a result of which Russian troops sustained a humiliating defeat. The Japanese government, realizing that the continuation of the war with Russia would be beyond their military and financial potentialities, secretly but officially asked the US to take the initiative for the reconciliation of the two sides.

Fearful of further Japanese expansion, US President Theodore Roosevelt at once agreed to be a mediator. He considered that the best solution for the United States would be a condition of mutual balance between Japanese and Russian forces and not for one side to win. So, in 1905 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a peace treaty was signed, according to which all previous agreements and treaties were to be annulled and the southern half of Sakhalin island was ceded by Russia to Japan. Thanks to his contribution as a mediator during the conclusion of the peace agreement, Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

From the mid-1920s, southern Sakhalin and the Kuriles assumed extreme strategic importance for Japan. They built numerous military bases on the islands, and on November 26, 1941, it was from Kasatka Bay on Iturup island from where an aircraft carrier formation set sail to attack Pearl Harbour.

At the Yalta conference of 1945, Josef Stalin asked that at the end of the war the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin be returned to Russia. US President Franklin Roosevelt felt there would be no difficulty in this happening provided the USSR entered the war against Japan. This it did. Three days after the Japanese surrendered, the Soviets landed on the Kuriles, occupied them and by 1946 they were declared the property of the Soviet state. Japan was not a participant at Yalta - it was still waging war - and it attaches no relevance to the agreement made there. Russia holds that the agreement reached at Yalta is legally binding.

In the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union agreed to hand over two of the islands to Japan, an agreement on which it reneged later when Japan signed a mutual cooperation and security agreement with the United States giving them the right to use their forces in any region of the Far East from Japanese territory. In the 1960s Japan started persistently demanding not only two islands but four. No final decision between the two countries was arrived at and the question remained unresolved with the Soviets still in possession of the islands. However, in 1969, all school maps in Japan mark the Kurils as Japanese territory, and since 1971 each February 7 is celebrated in Japan as the 'Day of the Northern Territories'.

The situation always has been and remains highly complicated. Each side and its supporters air their own diverse views. But since 1945, Japan and Russia, though not having officially signed a peace treaty, have not gone to war, or threatened war. Today's position, as described by the Japanese government, is that the two countries are talking.

In October 1993, President Boris Yeltsin visited Japan, drank saki, his hosts drank vodka, and they talked. At the end of 1994 the first deputy prime minister of Russia went to Japan and the two sides talked again. In April 1996, on the occasion of the Moscow Nuclear Safety Summit, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Yeltsin again talked.

In 1997, a Japan-Russia summit was held on the occasion of the Denver Summit and the Russians and Japanese talked, and agreed to continue talking, which they consistently have done. In March 2001, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori visited Irkutsk and he and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked and agreed that a peace treaty should be concluded to resolve the issue of the four islands. Based on results so far achieved, the two countries continue to engage in vigorous negotiations to find a solution acceptable to both.

Are we, Pakistan, now finally on the right tack? On the second day of his visit to Washington last week, President General Pervez Musharraf reiterated his determination to turn Pakistan into a "dynamic, liberal, progressive, peaceful and genuinely democratic Muslim country." Well done! If we do manage to be 'turned', this should solve all our problems, including one main irritant - the issue of Kashmir.

As for democracy, in 1997 the then democratic prime minister of Pakistan, Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, took it upon himself to order that the Supreme Court be stormed by his democratic militants. The laws of this land and its courts were unable to convict him for his act. Yesterday morning we read how Chaudhry Shujaat, erstwhile democratic stalwart of Nawaz Sharif and his interior minister, stormed the parliament building and disrupted the working of the Public Accounts Committee - and this is the democrat who, it is said, is one of the main contenders to be selected as prime minister after the elections of October, 2002. Does he not warrant disqualification from even standing in the coming elections? To have democracy, the people of this country, all of them, must have respect for law and order and law and order will have to be imposed.