Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf wants to meet Indian leaders face to face to seek a settlement on the core dispute of Kashmir, as talks between foreign ministers have gone nowhere, an Indian magazine reported.

The Dec. 6 edition of Outlook, published on the magazine's Web Site, quotes Musharraf as saying the Indian government was not treating the talks with sufficient urgency."You get an invitation for me tomorrow, I will be there," he told the magazine.

"The foreign secretaries are meeting, the foreign ministers are meeting. Nothing will come out of these meetings. You go to these meetings and you are not even willing to talk. What can happen?" Musharraf said.

In the first official reaction to Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh's statement last Thursday that New Delhi would consider greater autonomy for Kashmir, but was unwilling to redraw borders, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was an old proposal which had been tried and rejected before.

"It is being baptized again, but I don't think this is a serious proposal because it has been rejected by the people of Kashmir," spokesman Masood Khan said in Islamabad.Khan said foreign secretaries of the two countries will meet on Dec. 23 and 24 and would discuss the overall progress of talks, peace and security and Kashmir.

Musharraf was in Brazil Monday at the start of two weeks of official visits that take in Latin American capitals before a Dec 4 meeting with U.S. President Bush followed by trips to London and Paris.

Musharraf went abroad saying Kashmir, along with Pakistan's support for the Palestinian cause, would be central to discussions with Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac.

The United States has encouraged Pakistan and India to settle differences over Kashmir, a divided Himalayan region over which the nuclear-armed neighbors have fought two wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

India controls nearly half of Kashmir, Pakistan a third and China the rest.In an interview with Outlook, Musharraf vented his frustration with New Delhi's slow responses since the peace process was revived in January.

(From Reuters, November 29, 2004)

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