Islamabad: Terming President Pervez Musharraf's new Kashmir formula as "premature," former Premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has asked the Government to follow the pattern of Sino-Indian relations to defuse tension between the two countries.

The party "proposes confidence building steps to defuse tensions on the pattern of the Sino-India relations and strengthening of the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation) from a cultural to an economic framework," a PPP spokesman said.

Rejecting Musharraf's proposal on Kashmir, the spokesman said, "The PPP opposed this approach by the present regime as premature and unlikely to succeed while diluting Pakistan's historic stand without a quid pro quo."

The party believed that New Delhi would reject the regime's proposals.

"This is exactly what New Delhi has done. The PPP showed its wisdom in making the correct analysis before New Delhi spoke," he said.

The spokesman said his party also "reaffirms that the people of Kashmir are the ultimate arbitrators of the Kashmir problem."

Saying it would be wiser for the regime to learn from the PPP than try to hide its "miscalculations by wrongfully claiming that it opposes improvement of ties with New Delhi," he reminded the Government that "policies in New Delhi were framed after widespread consultations between different tiers of Government, including the genuine Opposition."

"This is because New Delhi has a democracy that does not prosecute its political opponents," he added.