Kashmir can 'erupt' again

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (L) shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh following a joint press conference in New Delhi Monday. Musharraf later wrapped up a landmark visit to India and left for the Philippines for a three-day state visit, officials said. Before leaving New Delhi, Musharraf and Singh in a joint statement agreed that the ongoing peace process between the two nuclear rivals was "irreversible" and pledged to increase transport links across divided Kashmir. PHOTO: AFP

"We may be having very good relations now, I may be having very good relation with (Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh, but nobody is permanent in the world," the President, who escaped two assassination attempts last year, said in a meeting with members of the Editors' Guild of India at a breakfast meeting in New Delhi.

"If you don't resolve it (Kashmir), don't blame me for what happens after 10 or 15 years," he said.

"If we don't resolve, it may erupt at some time in the future. This is my earnest belief that unless we resolve the dispute it can erupt again under different environment and under different leadership," he added.

Asserting that territorial disputes like Kashmir "cannot be resolved in one meeting", Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday said its ultimate resolution should be seen as part of a step-by-step process where the human dimension gets precedence over other things.

In an interaction with the Editors' Guild of India following the three-day visit of Musharraf, the Prime Minister said such issues are more amenable to resolution, if one looked at it more as a human problem than as a territorial problem.

He said both countries should give primacy to the human dimension of the Kashmir issue by removing restrictions on the movement of people, trade, investment and ideas.

"Out of that will emerge a new sense of interdependence that will force India and Pakistan to work together" to find a larger solution to the issue at some stage.

"Bureaucratic restrictions will not matter after some time," the Prime Minister said in outlining how he saw an eventual resolution of the problem. He said the momentum set forward by such cross-border movement could eventually lead to tackling of the territorial issues.

He said it was only through a step by step approach that new complementarities can be developed that would then encourage both sides to look for what the Joint Statement released on Monday calls a "final settlement" of the issue.

Musharraf's remarks were seen as a signal to India that he is the best bet to tackle the complex Kashmir issue and it should not be put on the backburner.

He said agreement meant nothing if the ideal environment was not there. "Therefore, we must go to resolve all issues, including the core issue of Kashmir."

While questions on Kashmir dominated the hour-long meeting, it was a considerably mellowed and more realistic Musharraf - compared to the cocky general who interacted with the editors ahead of the summit with then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Agra in July 2001 - who fielded the questions on Sunday.

Some analysts had attributed the failure of the Agra summit to Musharraf's press interaction, in which he sought to justify the violence in Jammu and Kashmir and described the terrorists as "freedom fighters."

This time there was only one reference to "freedom fighters" and that in a different context.