Pakistan People's Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has expressed doubts over President Pervez Musharraf's sincerity in the ongoing peace process with India.
The party also flayed Islamabad and New Delhi for raising the defence budget while talks were under way.
The PPP also demanded setting up of a judicial commission to probe responsibility for the Kargil aggression considering claims by the then prime minister Nawaz Sharief that Musharraf, then Army Chief, had initiated the action on his own.
"We doubt whether the Musharraf regime is really sincere in having peace with India... The judicial commission is necessary to prevent more Kargils from taking place," PPP leader and MP Manzoor Ahmed told PTI here.
Criticising both India and Pakistan for raising defence budget this year despite the peace process being under way, he said, "The step indicates intrigue in attitude."
"On one side, the two governments are pursuing peace process and on the other they raise allocation for arms purchase. It will give impetus to arms race rather than the peace process," said the MP who visited India as part of a parliamentary delegation at the height of tensions in October last year.
He will again be in India later this month to attend an Indo-Pak peace conference in Amritsar.
Ahmed favoured a moratorium on missile tests by the two countries during the time when efforts are being made to develop understanding and friendship.
"Testing of missiles and peace talks cannot go together if the two countries really want animosity to end," the PPP MP said.
Noting that both the countries had immense problems of poverty and disease, the leader from Kasur near Indo-Pak border suggested that the governments in New Delhi and Islamabad should utilise their resources to tackle these than spend on arms race.
He underlined the need for the two countries to strengthen their trade relations and people-to-people exchanges.
Ahmed also backed the idea of South Asian countries having single currency on the pattern of European Union. The suggestion was first made more than a year ago by then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani but it did not find much support.
On the ongoing peace process, the Pakistani MP said a number of ground has been made in developing understanding between the two countries. "But much more needs to be done," he said.
He suggested that the travel of members of state legislators, bar associations and prominent trade unions besides editors across the SAARC countries be made easy by exempting them from visa requirements.
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