ISLAMABAD, 21 December 2003 — Pakistan’s opposition parties have criticized President Pervez Musharraf for offering alternatives to Islamabad’s life-long demand that Kashmir residents be allowed to choose rule by India or Pakistan.

“How can we take a U-turn on Kashmir and abandon our 56-year-old stance?” Sen. Ishaq Dar of former premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) asked.

“Key matters should be debated in Parliament,” Dar said.

The suggestion by Musharraf in an interview on Friday that Pakistan could back down on the plebiscite demand evoked a furious response from powerful Islamists.

“There could not be a more fatal position for Pakistan than this,” Sen. Khurshid Ahmad of Pakistan’s largest Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami said. “Pervez Musharraf has no right to reverse, modify or change established Pakistan position on Kashmir.”

He said no one could drop the demand for a plebiscite or referendum because it is enshrined in Pakistan’s constitution.

While it is not clear that Musharraf has committed to abandoning referendum demands, the offer to negotiate on the key point of Islamabad’s Kashmir policy could mark a turning point in relations between Pakistan and India.

A senior Foreign Ministry official told AFP yesterday that Musharraf did not say that Pakistan was ready to drop its long-standing demands for the Implementation of UN resolutions.

“The president in fact said that Pakistan would prefer the dispute to be resolved on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions,” the official said. He said Musharraf was referring to flexibility by both India and Pakistan. “This does not imply a unilateral abandonment of Pakistan’s principled position on UNSC resolutions.”

Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid also said Friday that Musharraf has not dropped demands for referendum in Kashmir. “He’s saying that we can think of certain other things, we have some alternative proposals. He’s prepared to offer some alternatives,” Rashid said.

The minister declined to outline those alternatives, saying only that Musharraf would raise them with Indian leaders when “serious talks” are held. Pakistan has demanded since 1948 — a year after it was carved out of India in the partition of the subcontinent — that Kashmiris be allowed to choose between rule by Pakistan or India.

Kashmir remains one of the biggest hurdles to reconciliation between the two countries, which have fought two of their three wars over the region.

The demand for a plebiscite has been backed by the United Nations Security Council in several resolutions since 1948 but rejected by India.

Meanwhile, the local media reported yesterday that Musharraf would shed his army uniform by October 2004 to concede a key demand by the opposition.

“However, the president would like to maintain his command and control over the key institutions of national security,” The News quoted sources close to the president as saying. Even so, Musharraf would not make a public pledge on this to the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which leads the opposition demand that Musharraf lay down office as army chief if he wants to continue as president.