UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24: President Pervez Musharraf has urged India to make a fresh start on the 56-year-old Kashmir dispute, leaving aside 'hackneyed positions'.
"It is time to catch the bull by the horns," President Musharraf told a crowded news conference at the United Nations on Thursday afternoon.
"You can talk about terrorism. We can say it is freedom movement. You can say we have terrorist camps in Pakistan. We can say India is violating human rights in Kashmir," the president said while talking about the usual rhetorics that India and Pakistan indulge in. "But the stating of these hackneyed positions will not lead us anywhere." President Musharraf urged both the governments to engage in 'result-oriented and constructive' talks on Kashmir, which has plagued their relations since independence.
He recalled how both countries also had continued to blame each other for not stopping the violence that had affected the entire region. "We are like two elephants in South Asia, trampling the grass in our fight as well," said the president while talking about the impact of the India-Pakistan conflict on other countries of the region.
"Look where it has taken us. South Asia is one of the poorest regions and our economy refuses to take off because of our preoccupation with this dispute," he said. President Musharraf rejected the impression that recent efforts for normalization of ties had stalled and said he had seen 'positive indications' about the future of the peace process, but suggested that 'confidence-building measures and the talks should progress in tandem'.
The president also offered several new concessions on Kashmir and said that he was no longer insisting on a timeframe for resolving the dispute. "We will go to the talks with an open mind," said President Musharraf hours before his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York.
"There is a need for developing a relationship and an understanding and I am going there to do that," the president said when asked what would he discuss when he met Mr Singh.
"Understanding each other would be the best way to move forward the dialogue process." The president said he was not going to the meeting with some kind of resolution in hand. "I do not think we are going to sit there and discuss options and then come up with a solution. That will follow subsequently," he said.
"The more important thing is to judge intentions to reinforce towards moving on a path of peace through resolution of dispute," he added. When reminded that there had never been a peace accord between a man in uniform in Pakistan and India, he said he was hopeful that this was what was going to happen now. "I want to create a record," he said in a lighter vein.
Gen Musharraf said the signals, through whatever statements had been mutually made, gave positive and optimistic indications. "I am satisfied (with these). So far, so good."
When a reporter suggested that Pakistan should accept the LoC as the permanent border in Kashmir, the president said: "My mind is closed to this proposal. The LoC cannot be the solution to the Kashmir dispute. The Line of Control has been the dispute we have fought wars for. What are you suggesting is that a conflict should be the solution. Isn't it unnatural?"
He disagreed with another reporter who defined the Kashmir issue as a dispute between Islam and Hinduism. Kashmir is "a political dispute, not a religious issue," he said.
His appeal to change 'hackneyed positions' on Kashmir prompted a newsman to suggest that Pakistan had given up its demand for a plebiscite, but President Musharraf rejected the suggestion. "We have not left our political positions on Kashmir," he said.
TROOPS FOR IRAQ: Speaking about the situation in Iraq, President Musharraf said Pakistan would not be sending troops to Iraq because we could not be seen as an extension of the occupation forces in the country. "Our domestic environment is not conducive, we cannot be seen as an extension of the present forces there," the president added.
