Islamabad: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) on August 24 accused President Pervez Musharraf of causing a "great setback" to Islamabad's stand on Kashmir by offering to go beyond stated position to resolve the issue during his meeting with Indian Parliamentarians recently.

"The statement of General Musharraf, given before the Indian delegation recently, that Pakistan was ready to go beyond its historically stated position on Kashmir is a great setback to our internationally recognised principled position on the Kashmiris' right to self-determination. The people of Kashmir are indivisible," a PPP statement said.

Terming the Kashmir issue as a reality "that cannot be denied", Musharraf had said that India and Pakistan would have to show flexibility and go beyond their stated positions as otherwise there would be no progress.

"The Kashmiris' right to self-determination, which the General had tried to bargain away, was a right accepted by the international community, the United Nations Security Council and the Indian government of the time," the statement claimed.

It said that even at a time when 5,000 square miles of the Pakistani territory and 90,000 troops were in the Indian hands, the PPP government had stood firm on the Kashmiris' right to self-determination at Shimla, it said referring to the 1971 war between India and Pakistan.

"Now for no apparent reason the General's voluntary offer to give up the principled position amounted to a stab in the back of their valiant efforts," the PPP said adding Pakistan should remain firm on the "principled" position even while resolving to improve ties with India.

PTI