Musharraf says time ripe for Kashmir, Palestine solution

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf Monday stressed recent hopeful developments had made long-running Kashmir and Palestinian disputes ripe for solution.

"I personally believe that both the disputes are ripe for solution, today, now one sees beginning to an end," Musharraf told an international seminar on global terrorism held here while pinpointing the need to address the Kashmir and Palestinian disputes.

Musharraf expressed the optimism that Pakistan and India would be able to take the peace process to settle their long outstanding dispute on Kashmir.

On the Palestinian issue, he said Pakistan welcomed the Israeli pullout from the Gaza strip and expressed Islamabad's support for determined execution of the peace plan for a fair settlement of the Middle East problem.

In his wide-ranging address, Musharraf also supported British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to address extremism and assimilation of the British Muslims into the mainstream of society.

"We must address terrorism holistically and get to the roots, otherwise we will be tampering around political disputes lying at core of the core, failure is no more an option and their resolution will pull the carpet from under the feet of extremism and terrorism," Musharraf noted.

Articulating Pakistan's unswerving determination to wipe off terrorism from its soil and extremism from its society, he said all nations owed a collective responsibility, particularly in the areas of intelligence cooperation, to "prevent human beings from turning into bomb beings."

He cautioned the international community that without resolving political disputes, the world would not be able to prevent bomb blasts from happening.

Source: Xinhua