India, Pak should move forward on Kashmir in quake aftermath: Musharraf

Observing that India and Pakistan should move forward on the Kashmir issue in the aftermath of the recent quake by making the LoC "irrelevant", President Perzez Musharraf on Friday said he had developed "good understanding" with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on efforts to contain cross-border terrorism. "I believe moving forward is in political terms. Let's make the Line of Control irrelevant.

"That is what I said. Let's open it out, let people come on our side or our people come on their side to help in reconstruction," Musharraf told BBC in an interview. Asked whether the devastating earthquake provided a real opportunity to move forward on Kashmir issue, he said "I have always believed this is an opportunity of a lifetime to solve the dispute. Now during the tenures of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and myself if we do not cash it, we would fail.

"I have always believed in this. Now that disaster has struck, yes indeed. We should give it a deeper thought of what we are trying to do. We must resolve this dispute once and for all," he said. "We need to work out modalities. Areas which we can open out as crossing sites and the modalities are the same which we have worked," he said.

"People know my ideas. I have been saying we need to identify exactly what is Kashmir and then demilitarise that identified region, take all the soldiers out and then give self government to these people," he said.

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