A HIGH-PROFILE New York-based think-tank, Kashmir Study Group (KSG), has proposed what can at best be termed blasphemous - sovereignty for Kashmir with or without the two countries exchanging territories.
The KSG claims its proposals were circulated among government officials both in India and Pakistan, and that their response was positive.
That this report should have been prepared a month before the visit of the US President to the subcontinent has raised many an eyebrow.
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In its report, 'Kashmir: A Way Forward, February 2000', the KSG has suggested that Kashmir and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (Azad Kashmir for the Pakistanis) could become two sovereign entities on either side of the LoC. Alternatively, it could merge to become one sovereign state straddling the LoC.
The KSG has suggested that the new entity or entities will not have "international personality", nor a membership of the UN. It will also not be allowed to establish its own defense and foreign affairs mechanisms.
Among the members of this think-tank are 25 leading Americans including one senator, two members of the House of Representatives and six former ambassadors. The KSG is funded and led by Farooq Kathwari, chairman of Ethan Allen Inc, an American furniture retail chain.
The KSG had made its first proposal, or the Livingston Proposal, way back in December 1998. "The proposal was given to government officials in India and Pakistan and to diverse leadership in Kashmir, as well as to opinion makers in India, Pakistan and Kashmir. The reaction from many persons in South Asia, while guarded, was generally positive, and suggestions were made to develop the idea further," declares the KSG's February report.
The KSG has proposed three fundamental ideas which, it says, can't be implemented without India and Pakistan agreeing to it. The first of these is the creation of two Kashmiri entities on either side of the LOC - and having special relationship with India and/or Pakistan.
The second proposal is to have a single Kashmiri entity straddling the LoC. The third envisages only one entity on the Indian side.
Essential to all three proposals is the idea that the areas from the Indian side of LoC, which share the cultural tradition of Kashmir, could join the new Kashmir entity through self-determination. This, the report says, should be exercised by the people of the Valley, Doda district of Jammu, Gool Gulab Garh tehsil in Udhampur district, Poonch district and three northern tehsils of Rajauri. Pakistan's POK area could either become a sovereign entity, Western Kashmir, or merge with the single entity.
According to the report, the proposed territorial trade off between the two countries would imply for Pakistan -- and Western Kashmir -- a control over the whole of two divided river basins --- the Neelam and Kishenganga - and Poonch. For India -- and East Kashmir -- the exchange would provide a protective apron of territory to the north of the national highway 1A (which is often under Pakistani shelling), in the vicinity of Kargil; and a territorial buffer protecting the Uri hydroelectic facility. The exchange leaves Siachen in India.