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Deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim league has said Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf was turning out to be the ‘‘biggest hurdle’’ in finding a solution to the Kashmir issue and accused him of sabotaging the Lahore peace process.
PML spokesman Mushaidullah Khan said people of Pakistan and India sincerely desired a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue, and the Lahore Declaration was a practical step towards achieving this goal. But Gen Musharraf sabotaged it through the military revolt of October 12, 1999. He said ‘‘Musharraf is turning out to be the biggest hurdle to the resolution of the Kashmir issue.’’
Commenting on Musharraf’s remarks at Friday’s press conference, he said: ‘‘If people of the two countries sincerely wanted to resolve the issue of Kashmir, nobody could stop the process. Yes, the people of Pakistan and India do want a peaceful solution of Kashmir issue, but the diplomatic offensive launched by Nawaz Sharif towards this end was sabotaged by Pervez Musharraf,’’ he said.
He claimed a democratically-elected government in Pakistan had made significant headway in resolving the problem. ‘‘The general first disowned the Lahore Declaration, and then went to India in the guise of a dove holding out an olive branch, claiming he would create history, but was shown the door,’’ he said.
He said ‘‘Musharraf’s Agra yatra was in fact a desperate attempt to justify the military revolt, upgrade his stature, and prove himself to be a redeemer, but he failed in all counts.’’ The PML spokesman said when Gen Musharraf was compelled to recognise the importance of the Lahore Declaration, he came up, as ‘a face-saving gimmick’, with the boast that it was him who got Kashmir mentioned there.
‘‘If getting Kashmir included in the Lahore Declaration was so easy a job then why couldn’t the general get even a joint statement with Kashmir mentioned as a resolvable issue?’’ he asked.
He urged General Musharraf to give up the habit of making wrong statements because it was not becoming of a soldier.
He said Musharraf’s claim that ‘‘generals
know far better than politicians’’ was purely a military thinking and that
similar ‘‘erroneous perception of the Army generals had led to dismemberment
of Pakistan, imprisonment of 90,000 troops in India, loss of strategic
Siachen and Kargil heights, distortion of the Constitution and the democratic
institutions, deterioration in economic and industrial fields of life and
holding the country hostage to the international financial institutions.’’(PTI)
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