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'Kashmir not a bilateral issue'

By P. S. Suryanarayana

KUALA LUMPUR Feb. 25. The Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, tonight told the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that ``Kashmir is not a bilateral issue'' between India and Pakistan. In a `right of reply', which Pakistan circulated among NAM members in the context of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's speech to the summit, Gen. Musharraf said that the Kashmir issue ``has been on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council for over 50 years''.

Without referring to the finer point of international law that the Kashmir-related U.N. resolutions were not adopted under the mandatory Chapter VII of the global organisation's charter, Gen. Musharraf said that ``the official U.N. map belies (the) Indian propaganda'' that Jammu and Kashmir ``is an integral part of India''. The U.N. resolutions on Kashmir, adopted on January 5, 1949, and April 21, 1948, affirmed that the settlement of the dispute ``centres around the inalienable right to self-determination of 12 million Kashmiris who continue to be massively abused'', he added.

``Self-determination, the Indian Prime Minister needs to be reminded, has historically been a unifying and not a dividing factor in our (non-aligned) movement'', Gen. Musharraf said. Outlining Pakistan's known stand on India's alleged activities in Jammu and Kashmir over the years, Gen. Musharraf said: ``Mr. Vajpayee's interpretation of a call for eradicating the root causes of terrorism as a ploy to encourage terrorism defies logic. Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Pakistan is in the vanguard of international efforts to eradicate international terrorism''.

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