Natwar says no time frame for resolution of Kashmir issue

NEW DELHI: On the eve of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's visit to India, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh has said that it would not be prudent to set any time frame for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue and asserted that there is no question of taking Islamabad off the hook on cross-border terrorism.
"It would not be prudent to impose a time frame or deadline for resolution of the J and K issue, an issue which has defied solution for so long, and which, by all accounts, is complicated," Singh said in an interview published in the latest issue of 'Outlook' weekly magazine.
Emphasising that any discussion with Pakistan on Kashmir must be focussed "first and foremost on the need to end cross-border terrorism and dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism across the Line of Control," he said "there is no question of taking Pakistan off the hook on the issue of cross-border terrorism and terrorism in the valley." On numerous occasions, Musharraf has been underpinning the need for setting a time frame for resolving the protracted Kashmir issue.
Singh contended that Kashmir has defied solution because Pakistan did not pursue discussion on it from 1972 till 1989. Excerpts from the interview were put out by the magazine in a press release today.
"Pakistani leaders themselves, from time to time, argued for easier issues to be resolved first, and the more intractable ones later," he observed.