SRINAGAR: As the government of India declared that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, the mainstream camp here ridiculed the union governments assertion saying people of Kashmir are the main stake holders of the issue.
Opposition PDP while reacting over the statement said that Kashmir issue touches the skin of every resident of Jammu and Kashmir and that the people here have a right to present their point of view.
PDPS chief spokesman and legislator Naeem Akhtar said that the people of the state are the real stake holders of the Kashmir issue as the bullets being fired in Kashmir dont pierce through the chest of people staying in New Delhi or Islamabad.
He maintained further that GOI has to take a broader outlook to address the issue and if on one hand, it talks about resolving Kashmir on humanitarian grounds, it is ironical that technicalities are being searched on the other hand. It must be an open ended effort to reach to the respectable resolution of Kashmir.
Ruling national conference while terming the present stand of Modi government on Kashmir as an election stunt, observed that BJP is addressing the hardcore elements within the party ahead of the assembly elections in the state.
Senior NC leader and former parliament member from South Kashmir Dr Mehboob Beg told KNS that Modi is taking hard stand on Kashmir in view of the coming state elections and that as the elections would end, he would follow Vajpayees policy on Kashmir.
Beg maintained that Kashmir cannot be addressed sans the inclusion of Kashmiris in the process as they are the main stake holders of the Kashmir issue.
Pertinently, hours after the Pakistan High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, defended his meeting with the Kashmiri separatists, India hit back saying there were only two stakeholders on Jammu and Kashmir – India and Pakistan, asking the neighbouring country to respect past accords on truce.
“After 1972 and the signing of the Shimla Agreement by the Prime Minister of India and Prime Minister of Pakistan, there are only two ‘stakeholders’ on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir – the Union of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This is a principle which is the bedrock of our bilateral relations. This was reaffirmed in the Lahore Declaration of 1999 between PM Nawaz Sharif and PM Vajpayee,” a statement issued by the MEA said. (KNS)
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