Thursday, April 14 2005 18:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: On the eve of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's visit to India, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh has said that it would not be prudent to set any time frame for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue and asserted that there is no question of taking Islamabad off the hook on cross-border terrorism.

"It would not be prudent to impose a time frame or deadline for resolution of the J&K issue, an issue, which has defied solution for so long, and which, by all accounts, is complicated," Singh said in an interview published in the latest issue of 'Outlook' weekly magazine.

Emphasising that any discussion with Pakistan on Kashmir must be focussed "first and foremost on the need to end cross-border terrorism and dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism across the Line of Control," he said "There is no question of taking Pakistan off the hook on the issue of cross-border terrorism and terrorism in the valley."

On numerous occasions, Musharraf has been underpinning the need for setting a time frame for resolving the protracted Kashmir issue.

Singh contended that Kashmir has defied solution because Pakistan did not pursue discussion on it from 1972 till 1989. Excerpts from the interview were put out by the magazine in a press release today (Apr 14, 2005).

"Pakistani leaders themselves, from time to time, argued for easier issues to be resolved first, and the more intractable ones later," he observed.

Singh said India favoured an incremental step- by -step approach to take the peace process forward.

He said, "There is also the issue related to Pakistan's illegal occupation of a portion of J&K."

The minister said that the Pakistan Government had till now not given India any formal or informal options on Jammu and Kashmir.

After their meeting in New York, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Musharraf had said that both sides were willing to explore possible options for a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the issue in a sincere spirit and purposeful manner.

Natwar Singh recalled that the Prime Minister has reiterated on several occasions that India was "ready to look at all options, short of redrawing the boundaries and another partition of the country."

He spoke of India's proposal for allowing interaction on five select points between people on both sides of the LoC. "We need to work towards a situation where borders, even in our part of the world, begin to matter less and less."

On Pakistan's decision to approach the World Bank for neutral experts on the Baglihar dam issue, he said that the involvement of the world body was premature.

Terming as "completely misplaced" Pakistan's fears that Baglihar will give India the capability to either flood their country or withhold water, he contended that the Salal project located downstream from Baglihar would be the first to be affected if India took any such action.