Raising the Kashmir issue once again in the United Nations, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said the composite dialogue with India should be result-oriented leading to a solution of Kashmir issue acceptable to all sides with the stress on implementation of UN Security Council resolutions.
Addressing more than 160 heads of state and government holding a summit, he said Kashmir issue should be resolved in the interest of 'ending a cycle of confrontation and conflict in the subcontinent'.
"India and Pakistan should not remain trapped by hate and history," Musharraf said, adding that the solution should be acceptable to Islamabad, New Delhi and 'above all the people of Kashmir' and emphasised the need for implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions.
"It is in this spirit that Pakistan is pursuing the composite dialogue with India. We want the dialogue process to be result-oriented and initiate a new era of peace and cooperation in South Asia," he said.
Musharraf opposed the expansion of permanent members of the UN Security Council whose membership India seeks.
It should be expanded 'not by adding a new elite but by reflecting more fully the entire spectrum of UN membership and this can only be achieved through patient dialogue and general consensus'.
Pakistan supports expansion of the 15-member Council in the non-permanent category only and was among the countries which had organised 'United for Consensus' group that had strongly lobbied against bid by India, Japan, Germany and Brazil for permanent membership in the days leading up to the summit which ultimately thwarted the reform of the UNSC.
The Associated Press adds:
Pakistan's president is urging the United Nations to help developing countries build the technological infrastructure needed to lift their citizens from poverty.
Pervez Musharraf, participating with dozens of world and business leaders at a meeting late on Tuesday on technology development on the sidelines of a UN summit, said many poor countries face a dilemma: they can't free themselves from poverty without better technology; yet poverty often prevents them from building the kind of infrastructure necessary to get that technology.
"The rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer," Musharraf said.
"Technology, instead of bridging the gap, often becomes a greater divider." Musharraf called on the United Nations and international financial institutions to increase resources promoting technology innovation in the developing world.
Rich countries, he said, could give scholarships encouraging such development. Poor countries could help themselves by setting up trade policies to lure investment in technology services.
Leaders at the UN technology meeting said poor nations often pay more for basic services because they don't have the infrastructure to support the technology that would make their lives better.
The European Union's humanitarian aid commissioner, Louis Michel, said Africa, for instance, wastes hundreds of millions of US dollars a year because of bad technological infrastructure.
