Musharraf: Pakistan visit by Indian Kashmiris a "great leap forward"

Islamabad, Sunday (Afp)

President Pervez Musharraf said a visit to Pakistan by moderate Indian Kashmiri separatist leaders was a "great leap forward" toward finding a solution to the Kashmir dispute.

"This is a great leap forward in understanding, in flexibility being shown by both sides," Musharraf told reporters at a military base just before leaving for official visits to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

A nine-member delegation, including seven from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), arrived Thursday in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan's sector of Kashmir, on the first such trip since they launched their campaign against Indian rule in Kashmir in 1989.

The separatists arrived in Islamabad on Saturday morning from the Pakistani zone of Kashmir, and Musharraf said their visit would boost the peace process with India begun in January 2004.

"It is a very important confidence building measure (between India and Pakistan), but at the same time it has a great political significance because they had not come on the Indian passports and visas issued by Pakistan," he said.

"It is a recognition by both India and Pakistan of the disputed status of Kashmir." He added that he hoped the visit should lead "to discussion of the resolution of Kashmir, the options open, etc".

The trip by separatists is part of a peace process between India and Pakistan to end the bitter dispute over the Himalayan region which has sparked two of the three wars between the now nuclear-armed rivals since 1947.

They called on Friday for legislators in the Indian and Pakistani zones to draw up a joint plan to peacefully end the row over the divided state.

"Today for the first time it has been accepted that Kashmiris are a party to the dispute," Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told reporters on arrival in Islamabad on Saturday.

The Pakistani state minister for foreign affairs, Khusro Bakhtiar, who came to welcome them at a helipad, said a "new begining" had been made.

"It is a step towards the ultimate resolution," he said.