In a major shift from Pakistan’s long-standing position, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, whose party is set to take reins of the country, has expressed readiness to set aside the Kashmir issue by focussing on other aspects for improving relations with India.

He emphasised that the relations between India and Pakistan should not be held “hostage” to the Kashmir issue and that the two countries “can wait” so that future generations resolve the dispute in a mature manner and in an atmosphere of “trust”.

In views reflecting India’s position, Zardari said he was determined to break the barriers and mindsets that deter trade between the two countries. “The idea is that we feel for Kashmir, the PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) has always felt for Kashmir. We have a strong Kashmir policy. We have always had one,” he said.

“But having said that, we don’t want to be hostage to that situation. That is a situation we can agree to disagree (on). Countries do, we have positions, you have positions. We can agree to disagree on everything,” he told Karan Thapar in Devil’s Advocate programme on CNN-IBN.

Noting that India and Pakistan could “agree to disagree on (the UN resolutions),” he said, “We can wait. We can be patient till everybody grows up further. Maybe the coming generation grows up even further and then let’s interact as human beings and come to a position of love.”

Asked if the PPP would be willing to put aside the Kashmir issue just as India and China had set aside their border dispute to focus on other aspects of their ties, Zardari said, “exactly.”

Paradigm shift

The statement marks a shift in Pakistan’s stated position that Kashmir issue has to be tackled along with efforts on other fronts to improve relations between the two countries. Pakistan has held this position despite India’s repeated insistence that the two countries set aside the Kashmir issue because of its complexity and work for developing relations in other fields, particularly trade.

When bilateral relations improve, the two nations can come back and tackle thorny issues with the benefit of improved ties, Zardari, widower of former premier Benazir Bhutto, said. “Today, there are fixed notions. When dependency increases (and) we have matured enough (and) we’ve got trust between us, then nobody has fixed issues,” the PPP leader said.

Agreeing that Kashmir issue should be set aside for a wiser generation and a better time, he said, “As it is, it’s going to be a no-border world in the end.”

Asked about the Charter of Democracy signed by the PPP and the PML-N in 2006 that committed both parties to resolving Kashmir issue in line with UN resolutions, Zardari said, “I am not getting hostage to that issue.”

Disagreeing that the Kashmir issue could best be sorted out while the army is in power in Pakistan, Zardari said people-to-people contacts and inter-dependence in trade could help negate the “fear factor” in both countries.

“Well, we’ve had army rule for eight years. Have they solved it? I don’t need to convince them, it talks for itself,” he argued. While conceding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf “may have probably had the best understanding ever,” he said, “I want to take (the relations) to a stage of such confidence-building that the fear factor diminishes from both angles. “People-to-people contacts should be improved, then trade, inter-dependence of trade, if Indian industry depends on Pakistani energy and I depend on the Indian market for my product to be sold, we are both inter-dependent, financially integrated, industry-wise,” Zardari said.