Musharraf accuses India of holding peace hostage

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today accused India of holding peace hostage in South Asia through its “belligerence” and proposed immediate steps to prevent another war between the nuclear-armed nations.

“Today peace in South Asia is hostage to one accident, one act of terrorism, one strategic miscalculation by India,” he said in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Calling on India, a country with which Pakistan has fought three wars in five decades, to hold talks, Musharraf proposed that the two nuclear powers should agree to reduce forces on the fragile frontier, observe a ceasefire along the border that divides the disputed territory of Kashmir and halt what he called “state terrorism” against Kashmiris.

“Pakistan will not start a conflict with India. But if a war is thrust upon us, we shall exercise our right to self-defence fully and effectively,” Musharraf said.

There was no immediate response from India, but New Delhi has said talks would be useless until Pakistan stops arming and harbouring Islamic terrorists who launch attacks on the Indian-ruled part of Kashmir and elsewhere in India. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee addresses the assembly tomorrow.

The world has been increasingly concerned over tensions between India and Pakistan. The region was among the topics that US President George Bush discussed with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today.

“The situation may have calmed a little, but it remains perilous,” Annan said in his speech to the assembly earlier in the day.

Musharraf, Pakistan’s military chief who seized power in a coup in 1999 and last year became Washington’s closest ally in the war in Afghanistan, said the global campaign against terrorism must not be used to undermine genuine freedom struggles or to malign Islam.

He said one such struggle was by Muslim groups seeking freedom for Kashmir, a region that was divided between the two countries at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, which led to India’s independence and Pakistan’s creation.

“It is not religion which impels a terrorist act; it is often a sense of frustration and powerlessness to redress persistent injustice,” Musharraf said.

India was responsible for “de-legitimising the Kashmiri freedom struggle,” he claimed.

“India’s belligerence also reflects the chauvinistic ideology of the Hindu extremist parties and organizations,” Musharraf said, referring to Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party most recently has been blamed by rights activists in India for not doing enough to prevent the massacre of Muslims by Hindu extremists in the state of Gujarat earlier this year. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.