Settle Kashmir to improve ties: Pak tells India

Musharraf says that the settlement of Kashmir issue will end the cycle of confrontation and conflict in the subcontinent.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said the settlement of the Kashmir issue with India would end the "cycle of confrontation and conflict in the subcontinent" and improve ties between the two countries.

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"Improved ties between India and Pakistan will not be possible until the two sides resolve their differences over Kashmir," he was quoted by the media as telling new Prime Minister of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) Attique Ahmed Khan on Tuesday.

Musharraf, who is likely to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Havana in the middle of this month, called for the settlement of the Kashmir problem to end the "cycle of confrontation and conflict in the subcontinent" and ensure sustained peace in South Asia, 'Dawn' daily reported.

He said Pakistan wanted peace with India but the issue of Kashmir could not be sidelined.

Musharraf stressed that the dialogue between the two countries should be result-oriented, leading to solution of the Kashmir problem acceptable to Islamabad, New Delhi and "above all the people of Kashmir."