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Pakistan has given detailed plan on Siachen

Nirupama Subramanian

The package meets the concerns of both sides, says Kasturi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri said on Saturday that his Government had presented a "very detailed plan" for the resolution of the Siachen issue and that methods to identify troop positions on the glacier could be worked out on the basis of those proposals.

Addressing a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee after their review of the third round of the composite dialogue, Mr. Kasuri declined to say if Pakistan was ready to "authenticate" the position of the troops as India wanted.

Saying he did not want to get into "a battle of words," Mr. Kasuri said Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Muhammed Khan had handed over a plan that was a "complete package" to his Indian counterpart Shiv Shanker Menon during their meeting in New Delhi in November 2006.

"Frankly, I cannot go into details publicly, but if the intention were to find out where the troops are, we could find ways and means to meet India's concerns but we have to let the officials meet," Mr. Kasuri said.

In Pakistan's view, the package met the concerns of both sides, he said.

"Today he [Mr. Mukherjee] and I went over it, revisited it, and we have directed that the officials meet early," Mr. Kasuri said. "If India's concerns are to know where the troops are, ways and means can be devised."

Reiterating that the Siachen issue could be resolved "in days" given political will, Mr. Kasuri said a lot of work had been done on the issue.

Asked if the resolution of the Kashmir issue was not necessary for the lasting peace and friendship that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh desired with Pakistan, Mr. Mukherjee said "problem resolution and institutional arrangement of ensuring peace are the two sides of the same coin," and that "serious efforts" were being made to resolve all disputes.

He reiterated Mr. Singh's statement in response to President Pervez Musharraf's proposals that "all issues should be discussed and that we are prepared to discuss each and every idea to find a solution."

Mr. Kasuri added that never in the last 60 years had there been such sustained discussions on the Kashmir issue as now.He said serious efforts were being made to address the issue of terrorism, reflected in the decision that the joint mechanism against terror, which was set up at the Foreign Secretaries' meet in New Delhi last November, should hold its first meeting in March 2007.

Mr. Mukherjee said both sides decided to make the experiment "fruitful" so that the joint mechanism became an effective instrument to combat terror. He described terrorism as the "biggest menace" in the post-Cold War era, and "no friend to anybody."

Mr. Mukherjee said India was aware of and respected the "sensitivities" of the people of Pakistan on the issue of Jinnah House in Mumbai and said efforts would be made to resolve the issue "expeditiously."

The two sides agreed to complete work on the liberalisation of their mutual visa regime in February 2007. They decided to set up a committee comprising retired judges of the senior judiciary on both sides to visit jails in the two countries to ensure humane treatment of each other's nationals and expedite their release.

Mr. Mukherjee said the two sides would finalise a suitable date for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit.

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