Pakistan's ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf has said India and Pakistan 'almost reached peace' on Kashmir during his tenure, but unfortunately it did not materialise despite his 'best' efforts.
Musharraf, who is in the US to drum up support for his political comeback, also said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was genuinely committed to peace in the region.
"I was certainly trying for it (peace). And we were reaching success. I have always praised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his sincerity to reach peace," he said in an interview to NPR.
"And we almost reached peace on ... Kashmir, we had made some certain parameters and we were moving forward towards drafting an agreement," he said. "Unfortunately, that was not to be, but I tried my best."
Noting that peace was the only way forward, Musharraf claimed that the deadlock on Kashmir was rendering the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) useless.
"And I think the way forward is peace — for the sake of world, which thinks that this is a nuclear flash point; for the sake of SAARC, which is impotent because of the conflict, because of India and Pakistan. And for the sake of bilateral Pakistan-India advantages - socio-economic advantages which will flow from peace between the two countries," he said.
Musharraf, who recently launched his party - the All Pakistan Muslim League - that would contest elections in 2013, earlier this week accused India of trying to create an "anti-Pakistan Afghanistan."
"If I'm allowed to be very, very frank, India's role in Afghanistan is to create an anti-Pakistan Afghanistan," he had said at the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday.
In his interview to NPR, he said the "unfortunate reality, why I have to be so emotional about it, is every time it is Pakistan which is a rogue."
"Indian bomb is not a Hindu bomb. Pakistan bomb is a Islamic bomb. I think we are being ... very unfair to Pakistan...," he said.
