Musharraf came close to sign Kashmir deal with India: WikiLeaks

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Musharraf came close to sign Kashmir deal with India: WikiLeaks

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India and Pakistan had through back channels agreed to a non-territorial solution to Kashmir.

03 September,2011 02:17 pm

A newly released WikiLeaks cable revealed that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were inches away to resolve the Kashmir issue.According to the US embassy cable - dated April 21, 2009 - Singh confirmed this to a visiting US delegation, led by then House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman in April 2009, saying that the solution included free trade and movement across LoC.Singh told the US delegation that Delhi and Islamabad had made great progress prior to February 2007, when President Musharraf ran into trouble. We had reached an understanding in back channels, he related, says the cable, in which Musharraf had agreed to a non-territorial solution to Kashmir. Singh went on to add that India wanted a strong, stable, peaceful, democratic Pakistan and makes no claim on even an inch of Pakistani territory.Singhs comments authenticate Musharrafs assertions last year that India and Pakistan had reached that stage, where they were preparing the final draft for the resolution. He had said the two sides shared drafts through back channels, and these were in keeping with the four-point template which he had envisaged to resolve the issue. Singh, too, mentions in the cable that the two sides had arrived at the solution through back channels.Musharrafs four points included demilitarization, maximum autonomy, making border irrelevant and joint management of the area. Later, however, Pakistani government rejected the formula, saying that it was Musharrafs personal line of thinking that lacked endorsement either by Pakistani parliament or cabinet. Singh, though, does not make any direct reference to Musharrafs template in the WikiLeak cable. Musharraf had said, unlike in the case with Vajpayee, it was actually with Singh that Pakistan moved towards an agreement over the issue.