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Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 01, 2004

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Kashmir should not hold us hostage: Dixit

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 31. With the India-Pakistan Foreign Minister-level talks coming up soon, the National Security Adviser, J.N. Dixit, said today that resolution of the Kashmir issue should not hold the people of the sub-continent hostage and that the two countries should proceed with furthering the economic relations.

"Kashmir is an important issue to be resolved between India and Pakistan. But its resolution should not hold 1.3 billion people of the sub-continent hostage,'' Mr. Dixit told correspondents here. Speaking on the sidelines of the "Regional Conference on SAARC: Post-Islamabad Challenges," he said the two countries should further their economic relations to exploit the immense potential in this sphere.

He, however, declined to comment on the upcoming talks between the External Affairs Minister,

Natwar Singh, and his Pakistani counterpart, Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, here on September 5-6.

`Prejudices, a hurdle'

Earlier, inaugurating the day-long conference being attended by delegates from Pakistan and other South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation nations, Mr. Dixit said prejudices were a hurdle towards cooperation at government level. "Time has come for moving forward with conviction and [a] sense of clarity on what is good for us.''

India had a greater responsibility, he said and added that this could be meaningful only if there was a response to it.

"By just saying you have larger responsibility does not help. You have to shoulder the responsibility,'' Mr. Dixit said adding that reciprocity "may not be equal and matching but there should be an acknowledgement and willingness about it.''

The region with immense natural and trained human resources, collective technology and geographical proximity had the capacity for cooperation. "We only need the conviction that it is worth. We need the capacity to think out of the box of historical prejudices. We have to think of issues which really matter.''

Describing the January SAARC Summit in Islamabad as a landmark, he said the decision at that meeting for having a South Asian Free Trade Arrangement (SAFTA) could be a catalyst in forging cooperation within the region.

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