New Delhi: Yes, no, yes and no again – this is what Pakistan’s policy on Kashmir seems like.
Just days after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told a news channel that the country was willing to give up claims on Kashmir, Pakistan’s foreign office issued a clarification saying the country never laid claim on the state in the first place.
Pakistan foreign office spokesperson invited much media criticism on Monday when she said that Pakistan never considered Jammu and Kashmir as its integral part.
"Pakistan never claimed Kashmir to be integral part of Pakistan. Kashmir dispute is about aspirations of Kashmiris and what we said is Kashmiris should be able to decide their future. We hope they would opt for Pakistan. This is what they have been saying," said Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson, Tasleem Aslam.
Aslam’s remarks did not go down well with the media contingent present for the briefing and
journalists persistently asked Aslam the basis of her statement.
Some even questioned as to how Pakistan could take any such stand considering the decades-old slogan-shouting of Kashmir banega Pakistan (Kashmir will be part of Pakistan).
Aslam said that the statement comes as a clarification of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s remark - in an interview to a news channel - where he was had said that the country was willing to give up its claims on the state.
Aslam – while clarifying that Musharraf had not stated Pakistan would give up its stand on Kashmir unilaterally - said as per UN Security Council resolutions "Pakistan and India were parties to this dispute and Kashmiris have essential say to decide their future".
The foreign office also denied there was any shift in Pakistan's stand, saying even the country's successive constitutions since independence never claimed Kashmir as part of Pakistan and this was the reason why Pakistan-held Kashmir has a President and Prime Minister and not a Chief Minister and a Governor.
Pervez Musharraf had said in an interview to a private news channel Pakistan was prepared to give up its claim to Kashmir if India and Pakistan agreed on the four-point solution (a solution in which boundaries are not changed and India does not have to give up any territory).
Musharraf also made it clear that if the four-point solution, which includes no change in boundaries of Kashmir, making borders and the LoC irrelevant, staggered demilitarisation and autonomy or self-governance with a joint supervision mechanism, is agreed upon, Pakistan would also give up on the UN resolutions and its long-standing demand for a plebiscite.
(With agency inputs)
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