ISLAMABAD, Sept 19: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday advised India to give up the bogy of bilateralism and engage itself in multilateralism or Saarc-based resolutions of disputes in South Asia.

Inaugurating a two-day international conference on peace and security in South Asia organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies, the president said: “The forum of Saarc needs to be made more potent and mandated to play a pro-active role in regional conflict resolution.”

Any talk of security, peace, stability, cooperation, progress, poverty alleviation, economic progress and trade cooperation ends up in focusing on the India-Pakistan relations, he maintained.

Gen Musharraf said that improvement of India-Pakistan relations depended on resolution of the Kashmir dispute. “The earlier we understand this reality, in India and Pakistan, the better it will be for the region.”

Over the years, the president pointed out, India had developed an extraordinary doctrine of bilateralism which sought to sell its neighbours one-to-one relationship and resolution of differences through bilateral negotiations. Through this high-sounding mechanism, he said, India unabashedly exploited its superiority in size and strength over states much smaller.

He said India desired to mould South Asian relations to suit its own great power ambition.

The president said that the essential first step for peace, security and prosperity in the region required a peaceful and fair resolution of differences and creation of an environment of trust among the nations concerned. “While issues of peace and security concern all South Asian states, it cannot be denied that normalization of relations between India and Pakistan is a pre-requisite to the realization of the vision of a peaceful prosperous South Asia.”

The key to normalization of relations between India and Pakistan, the president maintained, lay in progress towards the resolution of the core issue of Kashmir. He stressed that a principled resolution of Kashmir dispute, in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people, would unlock the doors of normalization of relations.

He said that deployment of Indian forces in forward and strike locations entailed a grave security risk for the entire region. “There is a need to sit across the table and thrash out our differences...and this is also the opinion of the world.”

Pakistan, he said, had made major commitments and taken significant steps to ease the current crisis. He said India’s continued intransigence in the hope of further concessions was totally misplaced.

“There will be no more concessions from Pakistan and New Delhi must take substantive reciprocal steps if it is serious about its declared intention of walking to high road to peace,” he declared.

Gen Musharraf stated that Pakistan was neither allowing, nor sponsoring, nor encouraging any kind of movement across the Line of Control, the Working Boundary and the international border. “Any claims to the contrary are motivated and false.”

He said that it was practically impossible to completely seal the LoC. If India with larger force deployed, cannot seal the LoC, it should not expect this from Pakistan, he maintained.

The president said that the continuation of Kashmir struggle despite the measures taken by Pakistan to prevent the cross-LoC movement had proved the point that the struggle was an indigenous movement with grass-roots support in occupied Kashmir.

He said that an early acknowledgement by the Indian leadership of this fact would bring it closer to the solution of the Kashmir dispute.

Another source of great concern to Pakistan, he said, was India’s feverish conquest for hi-tech weaponry and force multiplication.

Giving details, he said between 1998 and 2001 India purchased weapons worth $7 billion and increased its defence budget by 50 per cent. “India has earmarked $4.5 billion for defence purchases this year.”

He said it was an open secret that while India continued to raise the Chinese bogy, bulk of its forces and strategic assets were deployed against Pakistan. He said Pakistan did not intend to get involved in an arms race and it had rather invited India to jointly reduce defence expenditure.

On the other side, he said, Pakistan had kept its defence budget frozen over the last three years.

The president referred to his statements in the United States and reiterated the peace offer to India. He said the offer included peaceful resolution of disputes, no-war pact, mutual reduction of forces and denuclearization in South Asia.

Referring to the doctrine of preemptive strikes, the president said it could apply between unequal opponents or adversaries.

In the case of equal adversaries, he explained, application of this doctrine would lead to war which would be extremely dangerous. “It would be more dangerous in case the adversaries are equal and have nuclear potential.”

Gen Musharraf said there should be no doubt that the doctrine of preemptive strike did not apply in India-Pakistan context at all, at least in the foreseeable future.

Earlier, the chairman of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Aga Shahi, said that South Asia had become the most dangerous place in the world and emphasized the need for resolution of disputes on an urgent basis.