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LAHORE, Dec 6: President Gen Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday that Pakistan was heading for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute with India in the light of confidence-building measures announced by both the sides.
Talking to newsmen after the special convocation of Forman Christian College here, the president said: “There is a visible movement towards the resolution of the Kashmir issue.”
He said dialogue between Pakistan and India would commence soon to discuss all outstanding issues, including Kashmir.
The president rejected the notion that Pakistan had retreated on the Kashmir dispute by ordering a ceasefire on the Line of Control.
In reply to a question, President Musharraf said he would meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the sidelines of the Saarc summit only if he wished so.
“Otherwise I will not meet him,” he stated. The president said he had time and again expressed his willingness to have a meeting with Mr Vajpayee but New Delhi had never responded positively to his gesture. “As a result of our repeated calls for a meeting, many construed as if we are dying to meet Mr Vajpayee.”
“At this time, I cannot say whether or not a meeting with the Indian prime minister will take place,” he said.
On a query about Indian efforts to fence the Line of Control (LoC), President Musharraf said Islamabad had already conveyed to New Delhi its objection.
However, he added, fences were being put up some five kilometres inside the LoC (in the occupied Kashmir) and were not visible (from the Azad Kashmir side).
Regarding Pakistan’s reentry to the Commonwealth, the president said Pakistan was one of its founding members. “It is sad that we are being kept out of it. And it would be even sadder if Pakistan is kept out of the Commonwealth at the behest of a couple of other member countries.”
He said Pakistan was a big country and a great nation. “Our reentry would enhance Commonwealth’s own honour and dignity.”
GOVT-MMA TALKS: Responding to questions on the ongoing government-MMA talks over the LFO, the president said the deadlock between the two sides would end soon, allowing smooth functioning of parliament.
He said he himself was monitoring the talks between the government and the MMA. “Only a few trivial issues are left to be resolved that require flexibility rather than rigidity.”
He said parliament was functioning smoothly and would complete its five-year term.
About People’s Party Patriots leader Rao Sikandar Iqbal’s criticism of the Punjab government for not taking their members in the cabinet, he said the government had already had ministers from that party. “Rao Sikandar and his MNAs are already in the federal cabinet,” he said.
