Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's call for a national debate on ways to resolve the Kashmir issue with options to include independence or joint control of the disputed territory has evoked mix responses in the past weeks.

Addressing a reception on Oct. 25, which attracted Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and senior officials, Musharraf stressed thestatus quo in Kashmir was unacceptable and that the Line of Control, a ceasefire line between Pakistan and India in Kashmir, could not be a solution to the lingering dispute.

He proposed identifying the available regions of Kashmir, demilitarizing them and changing their status quo before looking for possible options to resolve the Kashmir issue.

After identifying these regions in line with their local culture and demographic composition, there could be gradual demilitarization following which the two sides could discuss whosecontrol these areas should be under, said Musharraf. He proposed that Pakistan and India should also have joint control of these areas or the United Nations should be asked to play a role.

While clarifying the options presented by Musharraf on changingthe status quo in Kashmir and taking into account their cultural and religious configuration, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri saidthat the "new proposals were aimed at initiating a debate for policy formulation and were not an articulation of any hard and fast solutions."

Musharraf's "new thought" on Kashmir evoked a cold response from the Indian side. "We do not believe that Jammu and Kashmir isa subject on which discussion can be held through the media. So, if there are any proposals and suggestions regarding that, composite dialogue is the forum that we expect they will be brought to," said a spokesman from the Indian Ministry of ExternalAffairs.

The Indian opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Musharraf's options on Kashmir was nothing new because the bulk ofIndian leaders were simply not interested in showing any flexibility on altering the Line of Control. The BJP has rejected any move aiming to change the territorial status quo in Kashmir

While the majority of the Kashmiris welcomed Musharraf's options since it might give them a future of independence, the opposition groups in Pakistan including the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, which comprises all major opposition parties, and Mutthaida Majlis-e-Amal, a group of six religious parties, have rejected outright the options and charged Musharraf with taking a U-turn on Kashmir by relegating Pakistan's position to the detriment of the Kashmiris. The opposition parties have also indicated that they will take the matter before the parliament.

However, some Pakistani scholars highly appraised Musharraf's "new thought." Dr. Moonis Ahmar, professor of the Department of International Relations of the University of Karachi, insisted that Musharraf's options could break the stalemate and create plausible conditions for alleviating the plight of the Kashmiris and that he did not think it was a U-turn of Pakistan's policy on Kashmir.

"For the first time in the history of Pakistan, a person occupying the highest positions (President and Chief of Army Staff)has talked about independence and joint control of some of the regions of Jammu and Kashmir. It is certainly not a U-turn but a deviation from Pakistan's traditional position that the issue needs to be resolved according to the UN Security Council resolutions," Ahmar said in an article published on Nov. 2 in The News.

As senator Syed Dilawar Abbas put it, perhaps at some later stage, Musharraf's options could be examined by the three parties concerned to the Kashmir dispute as a possible solution.

He said Musharraf had placed the ball in India's court and thatit was for the Indian leadership to put their heads together now and come up with a suitable response.

Source: Xinhua