MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Oct 27 (AFP) - One of the most senior guerrilla leaders fighting Indian rule in Kashmir said Wednesday he was prepared to discuss President Pervez Musharraf's new proposals for resolving the conflict.
However, Syed Salahuddin, chief of the multi-party United Jihad Council, also said he was unhappy that Musharraf was giving concessions to India without anything in return.
"I regret that Pakistan is step-by step backtracking on its stand on Kashmir," Salahuddin said in a statement.
"It has always supported settlement of the issue in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiris as well as the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
"But all of a sudden division of Kashmir has been proposed which has no concern with Islamabads principled stand."
However he said that the proposals outlined by Musharraf could be discussed in tripartite talks between India, Pakistan and the representative Kashmiri leadership.
Musharraf proposed on Monday a three-stage formula for finally ending the rival claims of Pakistan and Kashmir, the first of which is to determine the ethnic and geographic make-up of Kashmir's regions.
Demilitarising all or some of these regions would follow with the final stage involving changing the "status" of each of the regions.
"Change in status could be independent status, condominium which includes joint control, it can be UN mandate also," he said, withdrawing Pakistan's long-held demand of a plebiscite for the Kashmiri people to decide their own fate.
Majority Muslim Kashmir has been divided between Muslim Pakistan and mainly Hindu India since the nations gained independence from Britain in 1947.
Their rival claims over the Himalayan state has been the cause of two of their three wars.
10/27/2004 15:56 GMT - AFP