India on Tuesday called on Pakistan to go through official channels with any fresh proposals on Kashmir, after Islamabad publicly offered new ideas to break the decades-old dispute. "We have heard those comments," Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters referring to ideas mooted late on Monday by President Pervez Musharraf who suggested independence, joint control with India or demilitarisation of Kashmir.
"We do not believe that Jammu and Kashmir is a subject on which discussions can be held through the media," Sarna said.
"It is one of the subjects in the composite dialogue process," under way between the two neighbours since January, the spokesman said.
"So if there are any proposals, suggestions regarding that, that is the forum that we expect they will be brought to."
The dialogue process aimed at resolving eight separate points of dispute between India and Pakistan, including Kashmir, has already gone through several rounds of talks, including at the foreign minister level last month.
On Monday, Musharraf called for a national debate on Kashmir saying that since a plebiscite in Kashmir as demanded by old UN resolutions and Pakistan was not acceptable to India, other options had to be explored.
He also proposed placing sections of the state under United Nations mandate.
The call for debate could give political impetus to talks between officials of both sides who have so far appeared unable to show much forward thinking on Kashmir, but real progress was likely to require top level talks like those between Musharraf and India's former prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in January.
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