Islamabad, April 13
Making it clear that he has not fixed any time-frame for resolving the Kashmir issue, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has asserted that the dialogue process between India and Pakistan on all issues, including Kashmir, has to move forward when the Foreign Ministers meet in July or August.
“I have not fixed any time-frame and I am not impatient at all. What I said was the Foreign Ministers are going to meet in July or August, and the Foreign Secretaries are going to meet again in May or June,” President Musharraf said in BBC World’s Hardtalk Pakistan programme today.
In the interview, General Musharraf refused to commit to an exact time-table for giving up his position as army chief and criticised opponents for tarnishing the image of Islam.
Clarifying his recent statement on the Indo-Pak dialogue process, he said, “Now what do we move forward on? I keep saying there are two channels operating: one is the confidence-building measures; the other is the dialogue process”.
“They both must go on, there is a simultaneity to it, they must go in harmony, move in harmony. We cannot be going on CBMs continuously and nothing happening on dialogue. So dialogue has been taken forward to May or June because of the Indian elections and we understand that,” he said.
He replied in the negative when asked whether relations between India and Pakistan had cooled recently.
When the questioner pointed out that a decision on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus route had been postponed, President Musharraf said: “No, no, there is no cooling. These are very serious issues. The total environment has changed after so many years.”— PTI
