LAHORE, Sept 10: Former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri says President Asif Ali Zardari’s statement that the nation will hear a good news about the Kashmir solution before the Indian election is ‘understandable’.

“I am happy to read President Zardari’s statement. Having been out of office for the last few months, I don’t know the concrete facts currently on the basis of which the president has made the statement. However, on the basis of my knowledge of the situation during the last five years when I was the foreign minister, I can make a guess as to why the president had made that statement,” he said while talking to Dawn here on Wednesday.

He said on the back channel and under the composite dialogue a lot of progress had been made on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. But, unfortunately, India had taken far too long in making up its mind in taking a final decision and, according to some Indian analysts and commentators, had missed a golden opportunity. He pointed out that even the National Conference leader and former Indian minister Omar Abdullah had said that India had missed a great opportunity.

The former foreign minister, however, felt that in view of the progress achieved on the back channel and under the composite dialogue, the president’s statement was understandable.

He said certain major developments had taken place since he had given up the office on the completion of the five-year term of the previous assembly. “The most important were the historic events in Kashmir during the last two months”.

He said there were two ways of looking at these events. But he would like to look at the situation positively. Hopefully, India now understood how important it was in their own perspective to resolve the dispute once and for all.

The ex-foreign minister said the situation could not be better for the resolution of this dispute. But the real issue, he said, was whether the parties concerned had the requisite political will.

Mr Kasuri hoped that the Indian leadership would demonstrate the will. He said the public opinion in India perhaps would help the government in taking a decision. He said even mainstream Indian thinkers, columnists and editors were emphasising on their government the need to resolve the issue to the satisfaction of the Kashmiri people.

He said that during his interaction with the government of India, he had repeatedly underscored the need for involving the Kashmiri leadership in the process so that any solution would find ownership in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Indian government was not prepared to agree to this. But as a result of Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts India did agree, as a first step, to allow the Kashmiri leaders to travel to Pakistan and India and talk to government leaders as well as leaders of public opinion in both the countries.

He emphasised that in view of the events of the last two months in Kashmir time had now come for the Kashmiri leaders to be involved directly by both Pakistan and India in talks concerning their fate.

When asked to give the contours of the talks on the back channel, the former minister said he could not go into details as a matter of propriety. He did, however, indicate that the talks focused on identification of the regions in Kashmir, self-government, demilitarisation and joint mechanism. “Different degrees of progress had been made on all these issue”.

Mr Kasuri said there could be prospects of relatively quicker progress on Sir Creek and even on Siachin. He said on Sir Creek Pakistan and India had conducted a joint survey and agreed on a common map of the 60-mile long estuary in the deserts of Kutch. In view of all this, what was required now was the political will. He hoped that the government of India would now demonstrate that political will. Even on Siachin, Mr Kasuri said, a lot of progress had been made.

The former foreign minister said even Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that Siachen should be made a ‘mountain of peace’, which substantiated his assertion with regard to progress on the Kashmir issue. “Obviously the Indian PM was not speaking in a vacuum.”To further prove his point, Mr Kasuri said, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon as late as May 2008 had said similar things in a reported statement. Mr Kasuri said time had actually come to make Siachin a mountain of peace.

He said even a moderate leader like Mirwaiz Omar Farooq had said that if the Kashmir dispute was not resolved soon, the youth would resort to violence. He said considerations of regional security also dictated the need to resolve the outstanding disputes between India and Pakistan. And it was a lesson of history that only a just and honourable settlement could prove lasting.

The former foreign minister said the bottom line of all the discussions that we were having with India was that the ultimate package to be presented to the cabinets and parliaments of both the countries should be acceptable to the people of J&K, besides Pakistan and India.