2006

January 02: Ahead of its Pakistan visit All Parties Hurriyet Conference leader says he would discuss the Kashmir leader issue with President Pervez Musharraf and other Pakistani leaders. 'We have nothing in specific but we will be generally talking about every scenario vis-a- vis Kashmir', says senior Hurriyet leader Abdul Ghani Bhat, who is also part of the delegation.
January 06: President Pervez Musharraf tells Kashmiri Hurriyet leaders that he hopes India would respond positively to Pakistan's proposal to demilitarise the disputed Himalayan region and grant it self- governance. “For any solution to Kashmir to be durable it has to be in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people,” Musharraf says this in a meeting with leaders of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference visiting from Indian occupied Kashmir. Musharraf says Pakistan and India have moved forward on Confidence Building Measures since starting a peace process two years ago, but needed solid progress on conflict resolution.
January 07: President Pervez Musharraf says if India agrees to withdraw troops from Srinagar, Kupwara and Baramulla to the 'outskirts,' there would be no militancy in the Kashmir valley. In a frank and open interview to CNN-IBN television news channel, General Musharraf complains of a non-responsive attitude from India towards Pakistan's ideas for resolving the Kashmir issue. Gen. Musharraf reiterates his 'formula' of dividing Jammu and Kashmir into seven regions. The formulation envisages the identification of trouble-torn regions in both Indian occupied Kashmir and Azad Jammu and Kashmir and their administration with joint control by India and Pakistan.
January 09: Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf proposes joint management by India and Pakistan for the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir, a move that would leave both countries with reduced sovereignty over the territories they now control. President Musharraf makes the proposal during an interview to Indian TV channel CNN-IBN.
January 11: All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq asks New Delhi to come forward with 'a set of her own proposals' if the lately floated ideas of demilitarisation and self-governance in Jammu and Kashmir are unacceptable to the Government of India. He says Kashmir-specific peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad has failed to move beyond one-odd CBM of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road link in the last 18 months and maintains that taking it to a logical conclusion is India's responsibility.
January 14: Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf says he communicated his ideas on self-governance and demilitarisation in Kashmir to the Indian leadership long ago, but their reluctance to respond compels him to go public. “I have been passing these ideas on to the Indian government, to the Indian leadership directly and indirectly, through back channels, though all kinds of channels,” Gen Musharraf says in an interview to an Indian TV channel. “We have given these ideas … I would like the confidentiality to remain, but my disappointment is that months and years are passing and we are not moving ahead.
January 18: India and Pakistan agree to start a second bus service linking both sides of divided Kashmir. A joint statement after two days of talks between the foreign secretaries of both countries held in Islamabad says Pakistan and India are committed to starting a bus service between Poonch and Rawalakot and a truck service on the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar route for trade as soon as infrastructure damaged by the October earthquake is restored. Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran says arrangements for the Poonch-Rawalakot route can be finalised by March-April. He says India's proposal for Jammu-Sialkot and Kargil- Skardu bus routes are pending.
January 21: Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz says India and Pakistan must move beyond simple confidence-building measures to 'substantive dispute resolution' of the Kashmir issue to achieve 'sustainable peace' in South Asia. 'India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri people must show courage, leadership, magnanimity, flexibility and a passion for peace in order to find a credible and lasting solution to the question of Jammu and Kashmir,' he says this while addressing a news conference at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.
January 25: Ruling out independence as an option to resolve the Kashmir issue, President Pervez Musharraf says a 'minor step back' is required by India and Pakistan from their 'rigid positions' to evolve a solution based on his proposals of self-governance and demilitarisation. There is crucial need for showing flexibility to resolve the lingering Kashmir issue and demilitarisation and self- governance proposals offered a good arrangement, Musharraf says this while addressing an interactive gathering at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.
February 17: The Kashmir dispute echoes in the United States Congress twice this week, once during a solidarity meeting for the October 8 earthquake victims and again when a State Department official lists it among the issues that need to be resolved. “We will continue to encourage peace efforts between (India and Pakistan), including a resolution of the question of Kashmir,” Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state designate for South and Central Asian affairs, tells his confirmation hearing.
February 23: Maintaining that the Kashmir issue is to be resolved between India and Pakistan, President George W Bush says that the US supports a solution to the problem, which is acceptable to all concerned parties. “The role of the United States, in our judgement, is one that will help lead to a settlement that is acceptable to all sides,” Bush tells Pakistani journalists here ahead of his visit to India and Pakistan.
February 24: US President George W. Bush stresses the need for “citizens of Kashmir” to be included in talks about their fate going on between India and Pakistan, according to the White House version of his interview to two Indian newspapers. The landmark remarks are made in a “round table interview” President Bush gave in Washington to The Times of India and Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar.
March 01: President Pervez Musharraf urges President Bush to seize the opportunity to help resolve the Kashmir dispute once and for all. Speaking to BBC ahead of Bush's visit to India and Pakistan, Musharraf says he is not expecting an imminent breakthrough in a conflict that has poisoned Pakistan's relations with India for nearly six decades. But, he says, he hopes President Bush would lead a renewed push towards a solution. “All that I expect is his weight, his voice pressurising all three groups - me, Indians and Kashmiris - to resolve the dispute now because now is the ideal time, ideal environment to resolve it,” he says.
March 02: US President George W Bush urges India and Pakistan to settle decades-old dispute over Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars since independence in 1947. The comments came as some Muslim Kashmiri leaders in the region, ask Bush to step into the dispute. The US president, after talks that sealed a deal on civilian nuclear trade with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, calls on the two nuclear-capable neighbours to iron out their differences. 'India and Pakistan have an opportunity to work towards lasting peace,' Bush says.
March 03: US President George W Bush tells Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he will not mediate on the Kashmir issue. “Kashmir and other issues should be better settled by the Indian and Pakistani governments,” Bush says, assuring Singh that the US would not mediate between the two countries.
March 05: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz says Pakistan would never abandon the Kashmiris and desires a solution of the Kashmir issue, through dialogue, according to the aspirations of its people. 'We have always been with you and will always remain with you, let there be no doubt', he tells representatives of Kashmiris soon after his arrival on a three-day official visit to United Kingdom.
March 20: Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri informs the Senate that Pakistan has not requested the United States to mediate on Kashmir dispute, but it urges the US government to show its interest on the dispute to resolve it. “We have not asked the US for mediation, but for facilitation. We want the Muslim Ummah and international community show interest on Kashmir,” he says this while winding up debate on foreign policy in the upper house of Parliament. He categorically says that Pakistan would not accept any solution to Kashmir dispute, which is unacceptable to the people of Kashmir.
March 26: All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq describes 2006 as the 'make-or-break' year for the Kashmir issue saying, “If we fail to come to expectations of people, it will be a big tragedy and the Indian government will be responsible for that.” The Mirwaiz says this while addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the World Social Forum in Karachi.
March 27: Pakistan welcomes a recent peace initiative by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but indicates that a friendship treaty is only possible after the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week made an offer of a “treaty of peace, security and friendship” to Pakistan as a new step in a two-year dialogue aimed at burying a half-century of hostile relations. The Foreign Office welcoming Singh's overtures underlines that the resolution of the Kashmir dispute “would usher in an era of good neighbourly relations between the two countries”.
April 05: Reiterating its policy on Kashmir, the US says the issue has been left to India and Pakistan to find a solution that would open the doors for 'greater prosperity' and 'greater peace' in the region. Addressing the House International Relations Committee on, US Secretary of State Condolizza Rice says the US has encouraged the two countries to 'come to a resolution of the Kashmir crisis.' 'It's a flashpoint. It's a place that has sparked conflict in the region. And is there a resolution of it, it would open up the region to greater prosperity as well as greater peace,' Rice tells the Committee during a hearing on the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy agreement in Washington D.C.
April 19: In a roadmap for the settlement of the Kashmir issue, All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq proposes division of the region into five zones, i.e. Jammu division, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir. Mirwaiz says there should be an assembly in each zone and then a joint parliament be formed out of these assembly zones and representatives from both India and Pakistan be allowed in the joint parliament. Addressing a huge gathering at Mendhar in Jammu province, Mirwiaz says Hurriyet roadmap on the Kashmir dispute is the 'only viable formula' to settle the issue.
April 22: All Parties Hurriyet Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq says the issue of Kashmir is central to Pakistan, India and peace in the region. Speaking at a two-day conference at Cambridge in the United Kingdom, Mirwaiz says until there is a movement on the issue, peace would remain a distant dream in South Asia.
April 28: The US has an 'interest' in seeing if a 'final settlement' of the Kashmir issue can be reached and is trying to help build on the progress made by India and Pakistan on the Composite Dialogue. 'The US is not a mediator. The US, obviously, respects the considerable progress that's been made by Pakistan and India in the composite dialogue and we're just trying to help build whatever we can on that progress,' US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns says after a round of talks with visiting Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan in Washington D.C.
May 07: India says there would be no demilitarisation in the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir, however the peace process would continue through dialogue. “There is no question of withdrawal of forces and certainly no question of demilitarisation,” Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil informs the Lok Sabha (Lower House) while speaking on an opposition- sponsored adjournment motion on the massacre of Hindus in Doda and Udhampur in Kashmir on April 30.
May 26: Pakistan welcomes Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement on resolving all outstanding issues with Pakistan, including that of Jammu and Kashmir. Foreign office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam says Dr Singh has raised several positive points on the need to improve human rights conditions in Indian-held Kashmir. She says Pakistan always urges India to take advantage of improved bilateral relations as well as the receptive international climate to resolve the Kashmir issue. Aslam says Pakistan also emphasises that resolution of the issue would involve moving beyond confidence-building measures (CBMs) to concentrate instead on focused discussions that would include the Kashmiri leadership in the peace process.
June 06: Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz reveals that Islamabad and New Delhi are actively interacting over Pakistan's proposal for self- governance and demilitarisation in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan and India have been talking to each other and have to move towards dispute resolution now, he says this while addressing a news conference at the Prime Minister House in Islamabad. The prime minister says Kashmir is the key issue between the two countries, which has to be resolved according to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.
June 12: Pakistan reiterates its position on Jammu and Kashmir by reminding India that it considers Jammu and Kashmir as the core dispute between Islamabad and New Delhi. While commenting on Indian Minister for Finance and External Affairs Yashwant Sinha's statement regarding presence of no document to prove that Jammu and Kashmir is the core issue or dispute between the two countries. Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson in a weekly press briefing says one should only look at the Simla Agreement in which there is a specific reference to Jammu and Kashmir in Article 6. This talks about a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir.
June 20: Hundreds of people cheer and wave flags on both sides of Kashmir on the start of a second bus service linking the two halves of the Himalayan region through Poonch-Rawalakot route. The bus service, to initially run once every two weeks, helps 74 people cross one of the world's most heavily militarised frontiers. It marks a positive step in strained relations between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours, which have fought two wars over Kashmir.
July 01: Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf assures Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan of unflinching Pakistani support for the Kashmir cause and rules out any shift in Pakistan's Kashmir policy. Sardar Sikandar, accompanied by President Muslim Conference, Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan, calls on President Musharraf at the Presidential Camp Office in Rawalpindi to discuss issues about forthcoming Kashmir general elections, ongoing Pak- India peace talks and quake rehabilitation process.
July 21: The speakers at a two-day Kashmir Conference in Washington DC declare the people of Jammu and Kashmir are the key to a solution of the dispute and any settlement made over their heads would not hold. The International Kashmir Peace Conference, is sponsored for the sixth year by the Kashmiri American Council and the Association for Humanitarian Lawyers, which is being attended by delegates from India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Europe and the United States. Addressing the delegates several congressmen, emphasise the central role the people of Kashmir must play in any effort to resolve the dispute.
August 19: Prime Minister Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Sardar Atiq Ahmad Khan says demilitarisation and self-rule in Kashmir are practicable proposals and also in line with the ideology of Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. These proposals are part of a political solution, which would bring a safe future for Kashmiris across the Line of Control (LoC), he says this while talking to a group of journalists in Muzaffarabad.
September 16: Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in their meeting in Havana, agree to resume the bilateral dialogue process stalled in the wake of the July 11 blasts in Mumbai. The two leaders meet on the sidelines of the 14th Non-Aligned Movement Summit, a day after Musharraf says a "historic opportunity" exists for the two sides to "close the chapter of tensions" and that Islamabad is determined to pursue the peace process to settle all outstanding issues, including Kashmir.
September 17: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says his talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Havana 'augured' well for resolving bilateral issues, including the Kashmir problem. Musharraf, who arrives in New York from the Cuban capital to address the UN General Assembly session, tells reporters there that his meeting with Singh last night was 'successful' and 'augured' well for resolving problems between India and Pakistan, including the Kashmir issue.
September 19: Stressing a mutually agreed, peaceful solution to the Jammu and Kashmir issue, Asko Numminen, Ambassador of Finland, says that the European Union did not see any possibility of mediating between India and Pakistan as the talks are heading in the right direction.
September 22: The United States President, George W. Bush, says India and Pakistan should resolve the Kashmir issue bilaterally and Washington would extend all support. 'Kashmir will be solved when the two leaders of the two countries decide to solve it. We want to help. We can't force the nations to reach an agreement because we want the agreement,' he says at a joint press conference with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf after their talks at the White House.
September 25: Mr. James Elles Member European parliament, Chairman All Party Group for Kashmir in the European Parliament and the Rapporteur of the Budget Committee welcomes the efforts of General Musharraf for the permanent resolution of Jammu and Kashmir to bring peace in the region. He says history is made at the extraordinarily successful Global Discourse on Kashmir 2006, in the European Parliament. He says European Parliament is on the back of General Musharraf to solve Kashmir issue as per people's aspirations.
September 26: Pakistan asks India to respond positively to 'bold' and 'out-of- box' proposals of President Pervez Musharraf to resolve the Kashmir issue, which would help bring durable peace to South Asia. 'We are happy with the revival of the peace process after the talks between President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Havana last week,' Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri says at the Annual Coordination Meeting of OIC Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the 61st session of the UN General Assembly.
September 27: The UK Parliamentarians term Kashmir dispute as the biggest problem of the world underlining that their government will play a significant role for a durable solution of the lingering dispute. These views are expressed by Minister of Local Bodies UK Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister Lam Burne, Members of British Parliament Tony Lewet, Graham Stinger, Lord Hunt and Mirza Khalid Mehmood besides Members of House of Commons at a reception in Manchester.
October 11: Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf says discussions are underway between Pakistan and India for an agreement on the Kashmir issue. He expresses the hope that 'something' could be announced during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's proposed visit to Pakistan.
October 13: India is ready to discuss privately all issues with Pakistan, including Jammu and Kashmir, but will never enter into talks on altering the border status of the disputed states, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh says this in an interview with a Finnish magazine. Talking to the magazine, Dr Singh touches on President General Pervez Musharraf's proposal by saying: I would not like to discuss this issue in public with Musharraf. We are prepared to discuss all issues pertaining to relations between India and Pakistan, including the Jammu and Kashmir issue. I have said on many occasions that we cannot discuss moving borders. We have to create a situation in which it is irrelevant on which side of the border the inhabitants of the area live, because goods as well as people can move freely. That is the job of the two governments, and it is the only alternative.
October 24: US Pacific Command Chief Admiral William J. Fallon visits Jammu and Kashmir and holds 'discussions on security' with army officials at Nagrota near Jammu. According to India's defence spokesman Lt. Col. S.D. Goswami, Fallon arrived at Nagrota, the headquarter of 16 Corps of the army, to 'hold discussion about the various aspects of security' with senior army officials led by General-Officer-Commanding (GOC) of the Corps, Lt. Gen. T.K. Sapru. Fallon also visits forward posts of the Indian Army in Rajouri district where he is given briefing about the ground positions.
November 07: Mirwaiz Omar Farooq is re-elected Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference. Announcing the decision at the end of the party's executive and general council meeting.
November 21: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri briefs Kashmiri leaders, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Raja Zulqarnain Khan and Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, on Pakistan-India peace process and shares with them key aspects of various proposals of President Pervez Musharraf for the final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
November 30: Pakistan dismisses the European Parliament's draft report on Jammu and Kashmir, which rejects Islamabad's demand for plebiscite in the state. 'This is an individual's report, which has been presented to the European Parliaments Foreign Relations Committee. In this context what is of importance and relevance will be the Kashmiri opinion,' Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam tells the media in Islamabad.
December 04: An urgent motion is moved in the UK parliament by British MPs against the startling report of the foreign committee of the European Parliament, which opposes holding of any plebiscite in Kashmir and, to the much disappointment of Pakistan, upholds the stance of the Indian government on the disputed region. The motion is moved in by Member of the Parliament Rowen Paul who asks the authorities concerned to review it immediately, as it misses many important aspects of this whole conflict between India and Pakistan.
December 14: Pakistan achieves a major and much needed diplomatic breakthrough in London after some MPs of the House of Commons vowed to support Islamabad's stance on the Kashmir issue in the crucial session of the European Union parliament, which will discuss a motion against the holding of a plebiscite in the disputed Kashmir region.
December 15: A British Member of Parliament urges support by the UK-based Pakistani and Indian communities on the peace process in Kashmir, saying the use of military is not an answer to the issue. MP Mike Gapes who is the Chairman of the powerful House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee tells an ethnic daily in an interview that Indian and Pakistani Diasporas must support peace efforts on Kashmir to help bring about a lasting solution to the 60- year-old issue.