ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s key aides said on Friday that the people of Kashmir would not be abandoned in the settlement of the Kashmir issue and underlined that Pakistan remained committed to a solution acceptable to the Kashmiris.

“India should read flexibility, but on a reciprocal basis, into what President Musharraf said regarding the Kashmir issue in an interview on Wednesday,” said a source close to the president.

“We are for the United Nations Security Council resolutions. However, now we have left that aside,” President Musharraf has said in the interview.

“If we want to resolve this issue, both sides need to talk to each other with flexibility, coming beyond stated positions meeting halfway somewhere,” he added.

President Musharraf’s statement has raised concerns among Kashmiris and different sections of Pakistanis whether the president’s flexibility on the Kashmir issue would amount to a complete U-turn in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy.

A breakaway faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference has strongly criticized the president statement, asserting that the UN resolutions are the only legal basis for resolving the Kashmir issue.

However, the US government was the first to welcome President Musharraf’s statement of setting aside the UN resolutions, terming it a “constructive development”. The European capitals were also likely to follow suit, diplomatic sources said.

Sources close to the president maintained it was in September 2000 that Pakistan for the first time categorically and publicly acknowledged the centrality of the Kashmiris to the peaceful and sustainable settlement of the Kashmir issue.

Discussions with various sources in Pakistan’s national security institutions indicate that President Musharraf’s statement is a mere articulation of a policy that he has been following since the Agra Summit, insofar as it underscores the need for Pakistan and India to be flexible in finding a mutually acceptable solution to the Kashmir issue.

According to an official from the president’s team, the president’s statement regarding the possibility of dropping the demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir merely indicates that Pakistan is willing to go beyond the text of the UN resolutions while remaining loyal to its spirit and therefore looking at possibilities other than plebiscite to determine the Kashmiris aspirations regarding their political future.”