Kashmir solution just a signature away?

Kashmir solution just a signature away: Kasuri
Says previous govt had completed 90 pc spadework on dispute; ‘we agreed on a point between complete independence and autonomy’
By Babar Dogar & Ranjan Roy, The News, April 24, 2010

LAHORE: Former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri has said the solution to the Kashmir dispute is just a signature away once India and Pakistan decide to pull the file from the rack.

While addressing the concluding session of the two-day seminar — held as part of the ongoing Aman ki Asha campaign, launched by the Jang Group and Times of India — and later talking to The News and the Times of India here on Friday, the former foreign minister revealed the previous Musharraf government had completed almost 90 per cent of the spadework on the half-a-century old Kashmir dispute by 2007 as the whole exercise just needed the formal signature of all the three parties to the issue - Pakistan, India and representatives of Kashmir.

“All India and Pakistan now need is to defreeze the process. The entire paper-work has been done. The copies of related documents are safe with some friendly countries as well,” said Kasuri.

Kasuri said that negotiators from Islamabad and New Delhi had quietly toiled away for three years, talking to each other and Kashmiri representatives from the Indian side as well as Kashmiris settled overseas to reach what he described as the “only possible solution to the Kashmir issue”.

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