ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: Pakistan on Monday declared that the main purpose of President Pervez Musharraf’s current tour of the Middle East was to discuss with Arab leaders the way forward on the Palestine issue and he would share with them a number of specific ideas on this key question.

This was stated by Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam in response to a question at a weekly news briefing here. Responding to a question, she said the President had “very good discussions” in Saudi Arabia and he was currently in Egypt from where he would proceed to Syria and Jordan.

“We hope that in these meetings the president would have very good discussions with leaders of the countries neighbouring Palestine.”

She said it was difficult for her to predict what exactly would emerge after the president’s discussions, adding: “But as a first step these are consultations to see what initiatives can be taken because unfortunately the peace process in the Middle East has stalled for some time and there is a need to make efforts to break that deadlock.”

When asked what exactly was Pakistan bringing to the table to revive the stalled Middle East peace process, her response was: “There are a number of ideas that he is taking with him. I would not comment on them publicly at the moment.”

Strongly disagreeing with the view that it was a point-scoring initiative or a political gamble by the president ahead of the elections, the spokesperson underscored that he was in the Middle East for consultations at the request of a number of Arab leaders who wanted Pakistan to play a role. “He has gone there for consultations, he would have some ideas which he would share with these leaders and they would have some ideas which they will share with him.

This is not his own initiative for point-scoring but he has been requested by a number of leaders to undertake this mission,” she categorically stated.

Asked if President Musharraf also had the blessings of the United States for the Middle East peace mission, Spokesperson Aslam said: “No, I don’t think it requires the US blessings. These are consultations with the neighbours of

Palestine and no, the US was not consulted on this.”

To a question regarding Pakistan’s proposal of demilitarisation the spokesperson pointed to the presence of more than 700,000 Indian troops in Kashmir and noted: “As a first step we have been asking India to at least relocate these troops away from the urban population centres so that people have a breathing space.”

She said this would also remove a psychological barrier, adding: “Since these troops are there in such large numbers, the incidents of human rights violation also go up.”

The spokesperson was non-committal when asked if Pakistan endorsed the view of the APHC Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq that it was time for Kashmiris to give up the armed struggle to pave the way for fruitful negotiations with India for a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute. “These are individual views.”