Keeping aside Mush's 4-point Kashmir plan, Pak to come up with new ideas

Islamabad, May 19 : Amid rumours that the new PPP-led government may not carry on with President Pervez Musharraf's four-point Kashmir plan during the Indo-Pak Foreign Minister-level talks scheduled for Wednesday, Islamabad may come up with some new proposals for the settlement of long pending Kashmir issue.

Musharraf's four-point plan had called for a phased withdrawal of troops, local self-governance, no changes in the borders of Kashmir, and a joint supervision mechanism in Kashmir involving India and Pakistan.

During the ministerial meeting, Islamabad and New Delhi are also likely to sign an agreement for the immediate declaration of arrests of each other's citizens, release of those crossing borders and the Line of Control (LoC) inadvertently and consular access to all prisoners within three months of arrest.

The agreement was almost finalized, The Nation quoted a Pakistani official as saying.

Besides, the two sides were also likely to relax the visa regime, thus doing away with the irritants linked to the issuance of visas to the people visiting Pakistan and India, he added.

The minister-level talks would be preceded by foreign secretaries-level dialogue tomorrow between Indian Foreign Secretary SS Menon, and his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir.

In the first high-level contact with the new democratic dispensation in Islamabad, India would also press for concrete action by Pakistan to end cross-border terrorism in the backdrop of renewed infiltration bids and terror attacks.

Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is slated to arrive in Islamabad tomorrow, and would call on President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, before concluding his two-day visit on Wednesday.

ANI