ISLAMABAD, Oct 12: Deputy Secretary General of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) Liaqat Baloch says delay in settlement of contentious issues between Pakistan and India was creating frustration among the people on the both sides instead of giving them the hope of a lasting peace in the region.

He was talking to an Indian team comprising Kuldip Nayar, a well-known journalist, Salman Haider, former Indian secretary foreign affairs, and Seema Mustafa, editor of Asian Age, in the National Assembly speaker's chamber here on Tuesday.

PML President Ch Shujaat Hussain and Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Syed were also present. Mr Baloch said the people of both the countries were no doubt eager to see lasting peace, development and security for their future and in this regard they had pinned all their hopes on the composite dialogue.

He said the Kashmir dispute could not be resolved unless the right to self-determination of Kashmiri people was admitted as basis of any solution. The Indian intellectuals, he maintained, should not depend on exchanges of delegations of intellectuals, politicians, parliamentarians and diplomats alone and should put pressure on the government to take concrete steps for permanent peace and friendship between the two countries.

He told the Indian team about MMA's negotiations with the government on constitutional matters to bring the country out of the constitutional crisis as a result of which parliament had passed the 17th amendment by two-third majority.

The real spirit of the MMA-government agreement, he asserted, was "ending" army's supremacy on parliament and democratic order by relieving the president of the additional responsibility of COAS. But regrettably, the Musharraf government was by passing the said agreement that, he feared, could once again plunge the country into another constitutional crisis.

Mr Baloch expressed his surprise when the delegation proposed that the offices of the president and chief of army staff may be allowed to remain together in the person of General Musharraf and said it was shocking for him to listen to such a suggestion from those who were claimant of being the largest democracy in the world.

He asked the Indian delegation not to support undemocratic and unconstitutional steps of General Musharraf as it was right of the people of Pakistan to have a genuine federal and parliamentary system without military supremacy.