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Kasuri says Dilip has confirmed his role in Pak-India peace efforts

IslamabadRenowned Indian film actor Dilip Kumar has confirmed his role in the peace efforts between Pakistan and India in the wake of Kargil war. It was revealed in former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri's book, 'Neither a hawk nor a dove', that is being launched in India these days.

By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
October 10, 2015
Islamabad
Renowned Indian film actor Dilip Kumar has confirmed his role in the peace efforts between Pakistan and India in the wake of Kargil war.
It was revealed in former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri's book, 'Neither a hawk nor a dove', that is being launched in India these days. The ceremony was held in New Delhi's Teen-Murti Auditorium, and it was also attended by former Indian prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, former chief of BJP LK Advani, former Indian foreign minister Yashwant Sinha and former chief minister of occupied Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, who reportedly 'crashed gate'.
Kasuri told The News from New Delhi on Thursday that Dilip Kumar is seriously ill and he is hospitalised in Mumbai where he is being looked after by his wife Saira Bano, also a veteran film star.
Kasuri said Dilip Kumar had become so weak that he could not speak and his wife called his (Kasuri's) wife Nasreen Mahmud Kasuri in New Delhi hotel in his absence and thanked them on behalf of her husband and endorsed the story narrated in the book.
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee received Kasuri in Rashtrapati Bhavan, while Indian Vice-President Muhammad Hamid Ansari hosted dinner in his honour.
Meanwhile, a leading Indian newspaper disclosed on Thursday that former Indian premier Manmohan Singh and President General Pervez Musharraf had hammered out a draft framework agreement on Jammu and Kashmir in secret talks. A senior Indian diplomat, familiar with the negotiations, said files recording unsigned documents, exchanged by the two sides, were personally handed over to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by his predecessor at a May 27, 2014 meeting.
The official termed Kasuri's book the first insider account of India-Pakistan secret diplomacy on Kashmir. New Delhi, the official said, had rejected General Musharraf's push for institutions for joint management of Kashmir by the two states, arguing that it would erode Indian sovereignty.
Prime Minister Singh's hand-picked envoy, Ambassador Satinder Lambah, and General Musharraf's interlocutors, Riaz Muhammad Khan and Tariq Aziz, held over 200 hours of discussions on the draft agreement, during 30 meetings held in Dubai and Kathmandu.
Lambah, a former intelligence official recalled, was also flown to Rawalpindi on a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) jet as negotiations reached an advanced stage, travelling without a passport or visa to ensure the meetings remained secret.
"In early talks," the Indian diplomat said, "Pakistan reiterated its public positions, calling for international monitoring of the Line of Control, and so on. However, it became clear that both General Musharraf and Prime Minister Singh were keen on arriving at an agreement that would allow them to focus on their respective agendas, without conflict over Kashmir sapping their energies."
"Each paper exchanged between the two sides," the diplomat said, "was read by him personally, and his instructions were then given to Lambah. There were just two people in the cabinet, and perhaps three more in the bureaucracy, who were privy to what was going on."
Later, Prime Minister Singh's interlocutor on Kashmir, now Governor NN Vohra, was also tasked with briefing Hurriyat leaders in the state on the looming deal. "I think the agenda is pretty much set," Kashmir leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said in an April 2007 interview. "It is September 2007," he went on, "that India and Pakistan are looking at, in terms of announcing something on Kashmir."
Prime Minister Singh, a former aide involved in the talks, was scheduled to begin consultations with his cabinet and opposition leaders on the deal, when a tide of protest unleashed by Pakistani lawyers pushed General Musharraf into a corner in March 2007. "He seemed confident the talks would soon be able to revive," the aide said, "but ended up being swept out of office".
Former President Asif Ali Zardari had sought to revive the talks when he took power in 2008, but was prevented from doing so by Musharraf's successor as army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
"At one time," Singh admitted at a press conference in 2014, "it appeared that an important breakthrough was in sight. Events in Pakistan - for example, the fact that General Musharraf had to make way for a different setup - I think that led to the process not moving further."
Key to the agreement, the Indian negotiator said, was an understanding that it would not require ratification by the parliament, or a constitutional amendment. Thus, the two sides agreed to treat the Line of Control "like an international border", with agreements to allow for the free movement of goods and people.
Following cessation of "violence and terrorism", the two sides were to draw down military forces on both sides of the Line of Control to a minimum, though India was permitted to maintain full-scale defensive positions.
Lambah declined to be interviewed for this article, but the official said the language of speech he delivered at Kashmir University in 2014 "was near-identical to that used in the final draft".
Earlier notes exchanged by the negotiators also agreed on self-governance for both sides of Kashmir, a proposal first moved by the PDP which now rules occupied Kashmir in alliance with the BJP.