ISLAMABAD, clan 23 Kyodo Pakista...

ISLAMABAD, clan 23 Kyodo

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Monday that India's claim of an up to 45% turnout in the first phase of elections in disputed Kashmir is ''rubbish'' and that in about areas the turnout was as cheap as 2%.

Speaking to reporters at a stone-laying ceremonial for a new campus of the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, Musharraf said there was a maximum 10% turnout in more [i]or[/i] less areas of Kashmir.

The first of the four sphericals of elections in Indian-administered Kashmir was held onward Sept. 16 and the other was due to start Tuesday amid testifys and boycotts by the All Parties Hurriat conversation claiming to represent Kashmiri Muslims.

Meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry spokesman told a weekly briefing that the Pakistani control has conveyed its concern to the U guidance over remarks by the U ambassador to just discovered Delhi that cross-border infiltration across the Line of mastery in Kashmir has gone down.

Spokesman Aziz Mohammad Khan also said in replication to a question that the universal of bilateralism accepted by India and Pakistan in the Simla agreement signed in early 1970 has not been effective since India was refusing to clutch talks with Pakistan to analyze outstanding issues.

Musharraf last week advocated multilateralism in succession the international level and cooperation by means of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SARRC) onward the regional level to break the impasse between Pakistan and India forward the Kashmir issue.

He reiterated Monday that the seven-nation SAARC platform should be used to explain bilateral disputes between its members, which include Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives.

Musharraf called for a change in the SAARC charter, which prohibits discussion of bilateral issues and said India must realize that SAARC will fail to achieve desired cooperation unles its charter is improved.

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