India and Pak were close to an agreement on Kashmir: Musharraf

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) India and Pakistan were
tantalisingly close to an agreement on Kashmir and other
contentious issues between the two countries when President
President Pervez Musharraf was in power.

In an interview to Karan Thapar's Devil's Advocate
programme, Musharraf, when asked if the two countries were
close to an agreement that was path-breaking, said, "Yes,
absolutely. On all three issues-- Kashmir, Siachen and Sir
Creek".

"...I had told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and he had
agreed, of course. It was his turn to come to Pakistan and we
had decided that if he comes and there is no signature on at
least one out of those three, if not all the three, it would
be a total flop and that must never happen. So, we agreed that
when he comes, there will be an agreement on at least one of
those three," Musharraf said.

Asked if that one was likely to be Sir Creek, he said,
"Yes, Sir Creek was more possible, but we had made great
progress on the other two also".

"Siachen is very, very easy to be decided. It is only
some basic semantics of what needs to be put in the text, as
far as the present positions are concerned. I think we are
just being too touchy about a minor issue and negating very
major gains that we could achieve," the former Pakistan
President said.

Musharraf said that the Siachen issues had been worked
out between the two countries and it was only the Indian Army
which put its foot down.

According to Musharraf, the Kashmir issue was based on
three principles which were demilitarisation, self-governance
and joint mechanism.

He said, it was his idea "that we should carry out
demilitarisation on the Line of Control and also within
Kashmir. And on our side, reciprocal action. I was suggesting
that the military, the Indian military, should move out of two
or three cities like Srinagar, Baramulla".

Self-governance, Musharraf continued would have meant,
"giving maximum governance to the people of Kashmir on both
sides, on the Indian side as well as the Pakistan side".

"...one could have carried on with the existing
structures on both sides and taken the people of Kashmir from
both sides onboard," he said.

Joint mechanism was to oversee that self-governance and
also discussing whatever we have not devolved to the people of
Kashmir. There were other elements and over-seeing that. There
was supposed to be a body (comprising) Kashmiris on both sides
and from Pakistan and India. That body would have been an
over-watch on whatever we had decided.

As far as Kashmir was concerned, Musharraf said the idea
in Pakistan was to make the Line of Control irrelevant.
"...the problem was the Line of Control because there was a
feeling that the Indian side wanted the Line of Control to be
made permanent. On our side, we thought that it is a dispute
therefore a dispute cannot be a solution. So, therefore the
idea was to make the Line of Control irrelevant," he said.

The former Pakistan President said, "there was an
understanding on the principles but the nitty-gritty that you
were getting into, a lot of work had to be done on the details
of how to demilitarise, and where to take hundreds of
thousands of troops and where should we be going? There were a
lot of details required".

Musharraf said he would have cooperated in the
investigations into the Mumbai terror attacks if he had been
the President.

"Well certainly we would have co-operated in the
investigation, because we wouldn't like Pakistan to be blamed
for being an accomplice-– the government, or the army, or the
ISI-– because that is what generally gets projected, that they
were accomplices in whatever happened; we would have joined
the investigation and brought whoever has done it to book".

Asked if he would have given so positive as to give the
message directly to Manmohan Singh over phone, he said, "Yes,
indeed--certainly".

On terror accused Hafiz Muhammed Sayeed, he said, "I am
not privy to what exactly happened in the courts, appeals,
rejection but if the evidence was against him then they should
have proceeded against him, certainly. If there is evidence
then one has to move against them. What the courts did and
what the government did with the courts, I am not privy to
that".

Musharraf said, "full measures have to be taken and a
crime like what happened in Mumbai was a terrorist attack and
therefore Pakistan must cooperate. The other problem also is
adequate sharing of intelligence so that the Pakistan side
cooperates fully," he said.

On whether he would have refused the FBI to interrogate
people arrested in connection with Mumbai attack, he said, "I
wouldn't be able to comment because I don't know if this is
the case, that they have detained some people and are refusing
access to the FBI".

"I would like to say that I was extremely sensitive when
anybody--FBI or anyone else--did not trust what were doing and
didn't have faith in the capabilities of the ISI or our
interrogation agencies and they wanted something separate. We
are a sovereign country and I didn't like that at all".

But he hastened to add that he would have allowed the FBI
to come and interrogate together with Pakistan teams. "...
but certainly not handing them over". PTI