Sunday, Oct 26, 2003
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India & World
By B. Muralidhar Reddy
Talking to presspersons in his hometown of Kasur, a border town of Punjab, Mr. Kasuri said that India and Pakistan had to start dialogue with sincerity to cover all aspects of contentious issues, especially the "core issue of Kashmir". Considered a moderate, Mr. Kasuri alleged that the main hurdle to effective peace talks was the "biased attitude of an extremist Hindu group". This is the first reaction to the 12 confidence building measures unveiled by New Delhi by any senior functionary in the Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali Government and seems to indicate that Islamabad is not enthused over the proposals. Islamabad seems to think that the proposals do not take it any nearer to its desire for a dialogue across the table. On the contrary, they "sideline" Kashmir and reflect India's intention to reach out to Kashmiris directly bypassing Pakistan. It is still not clear how much more time Pakistan would take to give a formal response to the latest CBMs. Mr. Kasuri is currently away in Madrid to participate in the Iraq reconstruction donors meeting and is expected to be back here only next week. Mr. Kasuri said India must desist from terming the "indigenous freedom struggle of Kashmiris as terrorism". He criticised India for making "belligerent" statements, on the one hand, and offering peace talks, on the other. He hoped that the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, would participate in the SAARC conference. The Hizbul Mujahideen has rejected the proposal to start a bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar. "The start of a bus service is simply an effort to make the Line of Control (LoC) a permanent border," Salahuddin, supreme commander of the Hizb, reiterated in a statement from Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. "India should recognise the issue of Kashmir as a disputed matter and only tripartite talks between Pakistan, India and Kashmir is a solution for resolving it." Mr. Salahuddin claimed that the proposed talks between the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and the Kashmiris were useless because Mr. Advani staunchly believed that Kashmir was a part of India. "How can such an extremist desire to solve this issue," he asked. He termed the CBMs as a bid to "fool" the international community and prolong the issue, and insisted that Pakistan could not be sidelined. "India is only acting under international pressure and by hinting at starting bilateral talks, it is not serious in settling the issue, it is only trying to fool the international community. The Kashmir issue is not a border dispute that two countries can solve between themselves, it could only be solved with tripartite talks," he said.
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