Kashmir compromise

President Musharraf offered yesterday to abandon Pakistan’s longstanding claim to the disputed region of Kashmir, which has caused three wars since 1947, and to supervise it jointly with India.

He said that it was time for India and Pakistan to reach a compromise on the Himalayan region, which is claimed by both nuclear-armed countries.

General Musharraf’s words appeared to be an emphatic gesture aimed at resolving one of the world’s most intractable and potentially destructive border disputes. It has claimed more than 100,000 lives.

Pakistan would renounce its claim to Kashmir if India agreed to a four-point plan granting the region autonomy or self-governance, he said in the first sign of progress from a new round of peace talks between the neighbours. Under the plan, Kashmir’s borders would remain the same, but would be opened, troops from both countries would gradually withdraw and the region would be supervised jointly by India and Pakistan.

“Yes, we are against independence,” General Musharraf said on Indian television, apparently abandoning the position that Pakistan has held since splitting from India almost 60 years ago.

Pressed about whether Pakistan was ready to give up its territorial claim, he responded: “We will have to . . . if this solution comes up.”

Earlier in the interview, he said: “We are at the moment, both India and Pakistan, on the same position as we were since 1948. But we both, I am saying, we both ought to be prepared to give up all that we have been saying.”

Anand Sharma, India’s junior Foreign Minister, responded only by saying that Delhi stood for peace, and that boundaries could not be redrawn in Kashmir — which is also partly claimed by China. “We cannot redraw the map,” he said.

Indian analysts also reacted with caution, pointing out that General Musharraf had made similar proposals in the past, including in his recently published memoirs.

India still wanted Pakistan first to cut off support for Islamic militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, and to introduce democracy in the one third of the region that Pakistan controlled, the analysts said.

Brahma Chellaney, of the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, said: “He’s repackaging old ideas and trying to appear innovative and conciliatory.”

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