Pakistan Signals Flexibility in Effort for Kashmir Peace

Pakistan is ready to drop long-standing demands for the implementation of U.N. resolutions on Kashmir and meet India “halfway” in a bid for peace, President Pervez Musharraf said.

For years, Islamabad has insisted on a plebiscite to allow people in the divided Himalayan region to decide between joining India or Pakistan, a position backed by U.N. Security Council resolutions in the 1940s.

But three weeks before a key South Asian summit, Musharraf said late Wednesday that he was prepared to be “bold and flexible.”

“We are for United Nations Security Council resolutions. However, now we have left that aside. Both sides need to talk to each other with flexibility ... meeting halfway somewhere.”