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Washington: Sticking to its stand on Kashmir, Pakistan has said Islamic fundamentalism will end only when issues like this and Palestine are settled.

Islamic fundamentalism will end only when issues like Kashmir and Palestine are resolved, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid M Kasuri said addressing the Heritage Foundation, a non-government think- tank, on May 15.

The Palestine and Kashmir problems are leftover from the colonial era, he said. "One way is to shut our eyes and hope it will go away. The other one is to try and meet the situation."

"In the case of Kashmir, we had three wars, and we nearly came to a fourth war when there were one million troops facing each other and they were there for 10 months until Prime Minister (Atal Behari) Vajpayee withdrew those troops and Pakistan responded by withdrawing ours."

Kasuri said that there can be no solution to the Kashmir problem unless aspirations of the people of Kashmir are taken into consideration.

"Even if we show flexibility," he said, "flexibility will extend only so far and we will have to tackle the aspirations of the people of Kashmir."

PTI