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Agra summit thawed relations: Musharraf

Talking positively about the Agra summit, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told his top army commanders that it helped initiate a fresh process of dialogue between India and Pakistan.

The summit was 'inconclusive and not a failure', he said while briefing the corps commanders and principal staff officers of the army on Monday at Rawalpindi.

The summit helped initiate a fresh process of dialogue between the two countries which otherwise had been stalled during the last few years, he was quoted as saying.

He said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee deserved all praise for having invited him to New Delhi and conceding that Kashmir was an unresolved issue that needed to be sorted out through peaceful means.

Musharraf also expressed the hope that he would meet Vajpayee in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, in September, which would further help resolve the outstanding issues between the two countries, according to a defence press release.

Meanwhile, Pakistan defence sources quoted Musharraf as saying that Pakistan's position on Kashmir has strengthened the centrality of the Kashmir issue.

He claimed that the press in India was 'vocal in conceding' Kashmir as an outstanding issue and that there was a logic in his repeated statements that resolution of Kashmir issue would precede the resolution of other disputes between the two countries, according to the sources.

PTI

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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