India said on Saturday it would consider any formal proposal from Pakistan to settle the decades-old dispute over Kashmir, the Himalayan region at the center of two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbor countries. "If such a formal proposal is made, we will certainly look at it," External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh told reporters. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but both claim it in its entirety. Last month, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf suggested making some areas of Kashmir independent, or placing it under joint Indian-Pakistani or U.N. control. The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan have held confidence-building talks aimed at resolving the Kashmir dispute. Their top foreign ministry bureaucrats plan to meet again in Islamabad in December or January.
