Time magazines' report on J&K draws ire

Officials in Delhi are cross about a story that says Manmohan will offer territorial concessions on Kashmir to Pakistan.

Officials in New Delhi are cross about a Time magazine story that says that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will offer territorial concessions on Kashmir to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf when they meet in New York Friday.

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Asserting that the story had no basis, officials said that the magazine's New Delhi bureau chief Alex Perry had "twisted" the remarks made to him in a background briefing by a senior official.

But a spokesman for Time magazine in New Delhi said: "We stand by the story."

In the story, which is part of a cover feature on India's new prime minister in the magazine's Asia edition, Time quotes an unnamed senior official as saying that Singh "will offer to 'adjust' the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border dividing Kashmir, 'by a matter of miles' eastward" as part of a complex package of give and take. It adds that the proposal has been under discussion for months.

"The official says that its formal presentation in New York is a result of Singh's instruction that his foreign affairs team thinks 'out of the box' on Kashmir 'to get a solution, and soon'."

The story has evidently embarrassed the Government ahead of the crucial Singh-Musharraf meeting as views incorrectly purported to be of India have been purveyed on an issue of high sensitivity to both countries.

The LoC is a ceasefire line that separates the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir.