Sunday, February 27 2005 09:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Stalemate is the most likely outcome of the current engagement process between India and Pakistan, a major think tank funded by the US Congress has predicted.

"Pakistan has very little reason for strategically abandoning militancy. For its part, Islamabad's fixations on its own domestic constraints without a realistic appraisal of India's will encourage it to have unrealistic demands on New Delhi," a report by the US Institute of Peace (USIP) said.

The report claimed that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf "faces incentives that predispose him to prefer stalemate to any other outcome.

"Musharraf has no reason to truly solve the Kashmir issue, even if it were his to solve. Such an overture would be perilous for him personally", it said.

This conclusion follows discussions within the institute with the participation of Shahid Javed Burki, former World Bank official and ex-Finance Minister of Pakistan, and prominent thinkers like Stephen Cohen, Husain Haqqani, Dennis Kux, Polly Nayak, Terasita Schaffer, Ashley Tellis and Marvin Weinbaum.

The report also said, "India's domestic compulsions regarding Pakistan and the Kashmir issue will preclude it from satisfying Islamabad's basic requirements for 'progress' in order to permit the engagement to continue".