NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, Dec 14:
Two hardliner Hurriyat Conference leaders today met Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit in Delhi and told him that Islamabad should maintain “consistency and firmness” over its Kashmir policy.
They also emphasised that Pakistan should play an “active role in highlighting the human rights violations” in Jammu and Kashmir at international fora.
“A Hurriyat delegation sent by chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani today held a detailed meeting for one-and-a-half hours with Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit in New Delhi.
“They held a detailed discussion over the recent meeting of Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan rulers on the occasion of Asia Heart Conference in Islamabad and also discussed the Kashmir policy there,” Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar said in a statement in Srinagar.
After Swaraj met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other leaders, the two countries decided to engage in a comprehensive bilateral dialogue covering Kashmir and other bilateral issues.
The two-member Hurriyat delegation comprised Geelani’s personal secretary Peer Saifullah and chief organiser of the amalgam Altaf Ahmad Shah, he said, adding Deputy High Commissioner and the other officials in the Pakistani mission were also present.
“The Hurriyat delegation handed them a message of Geelani that Pakistan should continue to maintain consistency and firmness over its Kashmir policy and play an active role in highlighting the human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir at international forums,” Akbar said.
The delegation also apprised the Pakistan High Commissioner about the present situation in Kashmir, he added.
Meanwhile, ahead of the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks next month, Indian envoy in Islamabad today said his country will discuss Kashmir which is under the illegal occupation of Pakistan.
Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan T C A Raghavan, while giving a lecture here, gave a historical perspective of the Kashmir dispute.
“The first application to the UN was moved by India and it was on the grounds that a part of the State, which had acceded to India, is now under the illegal occupation of the Pakistan army,” Raghavan said.
“So when you say what is it that India is going to discuss or what is it discussing, it is really, if you ask most Indians, and what is our position — it is the part of that State which is still under the control of Pakistan,” he said during the lecture at the Centre for Security Studies, a private think-tank in the capital.
In the broader sense, he said Kashmir will be part of talks with Pakistan.
Raghavan’s remarks came just days after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit here during which she called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and met Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz.
After the meetings, the two countries decided to re-engage under the ‘Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue’.
The Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India will meet next month in Delhi to work out the details of the dialogue. (PTI)
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