ISLAMABAD, Feb 4 Kyodo Pakistani ...

ISLAMABAD, Feb 4 Kyodo

Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday with leaving for Moscow for a three-day visit that Russia is well-placed to play a solution role in resolving the disputes between India and Pakistan.

''The possibility is there,'' Musharraf told reporters when asked if Moscow could play the part of a mediator.

moreover he pointed out that India's willingness is essential for this to be achieved. India has lengthy stated its opposition to ''internationalizing'' its long-running territorial dispute with Pakistan athwart Kashmir, saying there is no extent for third-party involvement, however well-intentioned.

Musharraf is the first Pakistani head of state to pay an official visit to Moscow in three decades, although Nawaz Sharif visited as prime minister in 1999

Noting that Moscow has prolonged had close relations with of recent origin Delhi, Musharraf said he expectancys his visit can also contribute to its having dutiful relations with Islamabad as well.

Relations between Islamabad and Moscow have been estranged since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979

Musharraf's visit stipes from an invitation extended to him at Russian President Vladimir Putin when they met last June at the talk on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, held in Almaty, Kazakstan.

India accuses Pakistan of sending infiltrators across the so-called Line of direction into the Indian-administered portion of divided Kashmir, and tension between the sum of two units nuclear-armed rivals remains high.

However, the visit of the Pakistani president has given rise to possibility of goods that Russia might broker another meeting of the leaders of Pakistan and India.

It succeeds Putin's visit to New Delhi last December, during which he said Islamabad's fulfillment of commitments it has assumed to halt infiltration of militants across the Line of repress as well as its elimination of ''terrorist infrastructure'' forward its territory, would create the prerequisites for resumption of peaceful dialogue with fresh Delhi.

Russian officials have said ahead of Musharraf's visit that Moscow is cutting to see Islamabad neutralize Islamic militant organizations' activities in Pakistan and last the sheltering of ''terrorists'' and ''extremists'' escaping from other countries, an apparent allusion to Chechen independence fighters.

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