Singh welcomes Pak proposal on Kashmir

NEW DELHI, Saturday, (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has welcomed a proposal made earlier this month by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to settle the Kashmir dispute, an Indian official said today.

Musharraf repeated a proposal of a phased plan to solve the decades-old Kashmir dispute, in which he said Pakistan would abandon its claim to the region if India agreed to give the territory autonomy under joint supervision by both countries.

“When asked about the proposal, the prime minister said any effort in the direction of normalisation of Indo-Pak relations is welcome,” said an official, who was with Singh when he made the comments to journalists on board his plane returning to India after a visit to Japan.

Musharraf hinted Pakistan might give up any claim to the mainly Hindu areas, if India renounced its claim to the overwhelmingly Muslim areas.