India, Pak were close to an agreement on Kashmir: Musharraf

India and Pakistan were tantalisingly close to an agreement on Kashmir and other contentious issues between the two countries when President President Pervez Musharraf was in power.     

In an interview to Karan Thapar's Devil's Advocate programme, Musharraf, when asked if the two countries were close to an agreement that was path-breaking, said, "Yes, absolutely. On all three issues — Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek."     

"I had told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and he had agreed, of course. It was his turn to come to Pakistan and we had decided that if he comes and there is no signature on at least one out of those three, if not all the three, it would be a total flop and that must never happen. So, we agreed that when he comes, there will be an agreement on at least one of those three," Musharraf said.     

Asked if that one was likely to be Sir Creek, he added, "Yes, Sir Creek was more possible, but we had made great progress on the other two also."     

"Siachen is very, very easy to be decided. It is only some basic semantics of what needs to be put in the text, as far as the present positions are concerned. I think we are just being too touchy about a minor issue and negating very major gains that we could achieve," the former Pakistan President said.     

Musharraf shared that the Siachen issues had been worked out between the two countries and it was only the Indian Army which put its foot down.