Pakistan urges India to withdraw troops

Pakistan today urged India to withdraw troops from its part of divided Kashmir, saying any such move by New Delhi would have a “very positive impact” on the peace process between the two nations.

The remarks by Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani came days after Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, and the two leaders declared the peace process, begun a year-and-a-half ago, was “irreversible.”

“We feel that withdrawal of troops from the Indian-occupied Kashmir would have a very, very positive impact. It would raise the comfort level of Kashmiris. It would alleviate many of their problems, and they would also feel part of this peace process,” Jilani told a news conference.

Indian troops are fighting Islamic militants who seek independence or Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan. India has long accused Pakistan of backing the insurgency. The fighting since 1989 has cost more than 66,000 lives, many of them civilians. Pakistan and Kashmiri leaders accuse Indian troops of human rights violations in their operations against the militants.

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. The region is divided between them but claimed in its entirety by both.

After the weekend summit, the two leaders agreed in a joint statement to continue talks on Kashmir and expand travel and trade contacts across the militarised border.

Jilani termed it a “landmark statement.”

“There was also an agreement to speed up the process” to resolve the issue of Kashmir as it has been “on the table for a very long time without resolution,” Jilani said.

He denied that Pakistan had shifted its position on Kashmir and said Musharraf had extensively discussed human rights abuses in the region with the Indian leadership.

Musharraf faces criticism within Pakistan and from some Kashmiri leaders who accuse him of sidelining the dispute over Kashmir and focussing on less divisive issues to appease India and keep the peace process going.

Meanwhile, a Kashmiri woman whose son was arrested in Indian-controlled Kashmir for illegal entry today appealed for the release of her son.

“My son went to see his uncle across the Line of Control 11 years ago. He did not come back, but we received a letter from him that he is in a jail in India,” Salima Bibi told reporters in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan’s part of Kashmir. Officials say about 50 Kashmiris from Pakistan are detained in India for illegally entering India’s part of Kashmir.

Pakistan and India have released hundreds of each other’s citizens in recent months.