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| Peace within reach in Kashmir: Musharraf | | |
Brussels, Sept 13: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said that peace was within reach in the divided region of Kashmir and challenged India to seize the opportunity to end the bloody conflict.
"I sincerely believe that today opportunity exists and it must be seized to resolve the dispute through peaceful dialogue," he said at a conference on the disputed region at the European Parliament.
He said that improved relations between India and Pakistan, as well as a "conducive international environment," could help improve dialogue over Kashmir if regional leaders are sincere, flexible and bold.
"Leaders who cannot grasp fleeting opportunity are no leaders," he said.
Musharraf's remarks come ahead of his planned meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) talks in Havana, Cuba later this week.
Both countries claim the scenic Himalayan region, which has been the source of two of their three wars since 1947. At least 44,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of an Islamic insurgency in Indian Kashmir in 1989.
Musharraf said he believed the best way forward would be to introduce confidence-building measures and increase the involvement of the Kashmiri region's leaders, before finally focusing on a settlement.
He praised Singh as "a man of sincerity" with "a flexible approach" and said he hoped the Indian premier would show the courage needed to resolve the conflict between the two nuclear armed neighbours.
But, likening the talks to a high-stakes poker game, the president insisted that Pakistan is "only prepared to be flexible on how to move forward" from its stance if India also plays a card.
Ahead of their talks, the Indian premier has said he would remind Musharraf of his promise to rein in Islamic militant groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba which are battling Indian rule over part of Kashmir.
However, the president suggested he had little sway with the militants, whom he said were also "trying to kill me" and that the heart of many of the two countries' problems were linked to Kashmir.
"Let us have the motivation for everything by moving forward the Kashmir process toward a resolution and then everything will fall in line, even those terrorists," he said.
This week's meeting in Cuba will be the first high-level contact between the two countries since multiple blasts on commuter trains in India's financial capital Mumbai in July stalled a peace process between them.
India and Pakistan launched peace talks aimed at resolving their dispute in January 2004, two years after retreating from the brink of their fourth war.
The rivals had completed three rounds of talks when New Delhi abruptly suspended the dialogue following the July 11 Mumbai attacks which killed 183 people and wounded more than 800.
India blamed Islamabad and a Pakistan-backed Islamic rebel group for the blasts, while Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected allegations that it was harbouring terrorists who carry out attacks in India.
The EU parliament conference on Kashmir is part of Musharraf's four-day visit to Brussels -- the first-ever by a Pakistani president -- which also includes talks with senior EU and Belgian officials.
He was also due later Tuesday to field questions from the EU assembly's foreign affairs committee.
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