MUZAFFARABAD: The settlement of a dispute between Pakistan and India over Kashmir is vital for regional peace, Pakistan’s president said on Tuesday as his government faces growing pressure to combat militancy.
President Asif Ali Zardari said regional peace was inextricably linked to the settlement of the decades-old dispute over the Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both Pakistan and India claim in full but rule in part.
“As world attention is on Pakistan, then together with Pakistan, the world has to talk about the Kashmir problem as well because only then can peace be brought to the region,” Zardari said in a address to Pakistani Kashmir’s legislature.
“We cannot delink regional peace from peace in Kashmir...we have highlighted this thinking in the world and will keep projecting it.”
Zardari said Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since their independence from British rule in 1947, should learn to live in peace.
“We know that we cannot change our neighbors but they should also know that they can also not change their neighbors.”
India, which rejects outside involvement in the Kashmir dispute, accuses Pakistan of arming and sending militants across the border to fight Indian rule in Kashmir.
Pakistan denies that, saying it only extends political, moral and diplomatic support to what it calls Kashmir’s freedom movement.
While India and Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of backing rebels fighting the Indian and Afghan governments, Pakistan says India and Afghanistan are helping separatist rebels in Pakistan’s gas-rich Baluchistan province.
