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Pak offers to meet India halfway on Kashmir

Tahir Ikram in PoK

Pakistan military ruler General Pervez Musharraf appealed on Monday for India to help end their 53-year-old dispute over Kashmir by meeting Pakistani demands halfway.

The call by Musharraf followed moves by Pakistan and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over the past two months to ease tension along the line that divides Kashmir into Pakistani and Indian-held areas.

"Vajpayee, show statesmanship, come forward in solving Kashmir," Musharraf said at a meeting held to mark solidarity with Kashmir Day, a national holiday in Pakistan.

"I want to give this assurance: that I and Pakistanis will come halfway to meet you."

Musharraf, speaking to refugees from Indian-held Kashmir at a decade-old camp on the banks of Jhelum River, said steps in the past two months -- an Indian ceasefire against guerrillas inside Kashmir and a Pakistani troop reduction on the border -- had eased tension.

But he warned that an opportunity for peace could disappear unless India allows a visit to Pakistan by a five-man committee of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of mainly pro-Pakistani Kashmiri groups based in Kashmir.

The group, seeking to boost the search for peace, wants to send its representatives to Pakistan for talks with authorities and Kashmiri guerrilla groups based there.

The J&K Ceasefire: Complete Coverage

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