Islamabad: In a significant observation, Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid has said India and Pakistan could resolve the Kashmir issue in the next three years but the final solution might not be the one expected by the two countries.

"The problem could be solved between the two countries in the next three years but not in a way Pakistan and India wanted it to be," he told reporters in Lahore on March 3 while firmly defending the aggressive policy being pursued by President Pervez Musharraf on Kashmir.

"We should mentally be prepared for this," he said without elaborating what could be the basis for the solution.

To a question on US Secretary of State Collin Powell's recent statement that Washington would remain engaged with India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue, he said, "doors of negotiations should always be kept open".

He said when it came to the Kashmir policy, Musharraf played on "the front foot" to keep it in the focus of the international community.

Rashid said many people in Pakistan wanted to "get rid of the dispute and did not consider it as 'jihad'." But after the September 11 attacks in US, Washington turned against Pakistan's policies, he added.

Rashid's comments were seen by the diplomatic circles in Islamabad as a follow-up to statements made by chairman of Pakistan's Kashmir Committee, Sardar Qayyum Khan, a few months ago that Islamabad should seriously consider accepting the line of control (LoC) as a solution. Qayyum's comments, however, drew angry reactions from the hardline militant groups but evoked feeble protests from Pakistan's hardline religious parties.

PTI