ISLAMABAD, 30 October 2003 — US Secretary of State Colin Powell contacted Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in Spain to encourage him to move forward in talks with India, a government official said yesterday.
Powell placed the telephone call Tuesday to Kasuri, who stayed on in Spain after a donors conference on Iraq which both men attended, said the official on condition of anonymity. It came a week after India unveiled a 12-point peace plan to improve relations with Pakistan.
State-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan said Powell and Kasuri held a lengthy conversation about South Asia and about the donors conference.
Kasuri told Powell that “the only option available to India and Pakistan was to initiate a comprehensive dialogue which could address all issues of concern to both countries, including the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir,” the APP reported.
Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
The Indian proposals mainly called for expanding travel and sporting links, easing visa regulations and starting a bus service between the two divided parts of Kashmir.
They made no mention of negotiations with Pakistan on Kashmir. But India separately offered a dialogue with separatist Kashmiri leaders on decentralizing power that would give more autonomy to the Kashmiris.
More than a dozen groups have been fighting for the independence of the Indian part of Kashmir, or its merger with Pakistan. The 13-year insurgency has left more than 63,000 dead. Pakistan and Kashmiris put the toll at 80,000.
