'Musharraf offered to conquer Kashmir'

NEW DELHI: In a "startling revelation", former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has claimed that Pervez Musharraf in 1996 had sought her permission to "take" Kashmir by assuming control of Srinagar, a suggestion she had shot down.

Bhutto made this claim in the revised edition of her autobiography "Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of the East" released in Britain this week.

Musharraf, then a major general and director of military operations, had concluded a briefing to Bhutto with the words that "a ceasefire would be in place and Pakistan would be in control of Srinagar."

"I asked him, 'And what next?' He was surprised by my question, and said, 'Next we will put the flag of Pakistan on the Srinagar Parliament'," she wrote in her autobiography.

She said Musharraf asked her to go to the United Nations and "tell them that Srinagar is in Pakistan's control."

"'And what next?' I pushed on. I could see the General Musharraf had not been prepared for this grilling and was getting flustered.

He said, 'And you will tell them to change the map of the world taking into consideration the new geographical realities'," she writes.

Bhutto said she ended the meeting abruptly after telling Musharraf "pointedly" that "they (UN) will pass a Security Council resolution condemning us and demanding that we unilaterally withdraw from Srinagar, and we will have nothing for our efforts but humiliation and isolation."

Bhutto writes that this was the second offer she had received to conquer Kashmir. The earlier being made by General Aslam Beg during her first term as prime minister between 1988 and 1990.