SRINAGAR: Both Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference today welcomed the interaction process between the Hurriyat leaders and Pakistani government.
According to PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti talks between the two sides in New Delhi is a welcome revival of the process initiated by the NDA government and should be carried forward in all its dimensions.
Welcoming the talks between Hurriyat leaders from the state and Sartaj Aziz, the foreign policy adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said involvement of the opinion leaders from Jammu & Kashmir in the dialogue process between our country and Pakistan was inevitable if a lasting and just resolution of the problem was to be achieved.
She was addressing party workers in Kangan today.
Mehbooba said all the stakeholders and schools of thought frm J&K have to be taken on board in the resolution process and the Hurriyat Conferences represent an important point of view.
Mehbooba said the criticism of the talks in New Delhi is misplaced as this process was started many years back and Hurriyat leaders have been meeting the top leadership of both the governments of India and Pakistan. The Hurriyat leaders have traveled to Pakistan many times and held discussions with that countrys presidents and Prime Ministers and it is unfortunate that some partys like BJP and the NC has smelled rat in it and are opposing such contacts which could be very fruitful for the resolution process.
Referring to the debate over the release of senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mehbooba said his release has unnecessarily been made a topic of discussion. She said Geelani Saheb was denied even the opportunity to offer prayers or attend social functions for all these years and now when under the public pressure government has allowed him free movement, it is being presented as a great act of generosity by the Omar Abdullah government. She said in a democracy every body has a right to express views and propagate them and that is why the PDP government in 2002 had released all detainees and prisoners who had been jailed by the NC for their dissenting views. However Omar Abdullah government has now formally criminalized dissent and has held not just Geelani but many other leaders and activists captive while arresting thousands of young people and involving them in multiple police cases, she said.
Mehbooba said it is in the hands of the people them selves to give the state a government that brings in a change, delivers justice, facilitates resolution or continue with the insensitive, corrupt, anti-people and anti-youth dispensation. She expressed confidence that after having tasted the misrule and atrocities of the NC government and the change that was brought in by the PDP-Congress coalition, people would judge the parties on the basis of their performance and not on hollow promises.
NC MP Hails Hurriyat-Pak Talks
National Conference Monday said that allowing Hurriyat leadership to meet the advisor of Pakistan premier is not a diplomatic blunder but a welcome step and the Government of India must encourage separatist leadership of Kashmir to go ahead for talks with the Pakistani leadership.
BJP president, Rajnath Singh had said that the UPA government had committed a diplomatic blunder” by allowing Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s advisor Sartaj Aziz to meet Kashmiri separatists on Indian soil and demanded that the talks be stopped.
Terming the statement of BJP president as useless as garbage, Member Parliament and National Conference senior leader, Dr Mehboob Beigh said that such statements do not serve any purpose and instead prove counter-productive and complicate the matter.
Beigh said that a structural dialogue with all stakeholders was need of the hour and BJP should shun its policy of double speak. This party speaks in different tone when in opposition while in power BJP takes all measures to sooth the separatist leadership of Kashmir, he said.
He said there is no substitute to resolving the Kashmir issue that has dampened the immense economic potential of sub-continent for decades and bruised the body and soul of Jammu and Kashmir.
Coming down heavily on BJP president, Beigh said that it was Vajpayee, who visited Pakistan and talked about peace. Did Rajnath forget that L.K.Advani as Home Minister of India talked to Hizbul Mujahideen. This party has dual approach which is not good for the nation, he said and added that both BJP and Congress should arrive at a consensus to resolve the Kashmir issue. (CNS)
