Adil Lateef
Srinagar, Oct 25: Hurriyat Conference (M) chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, today said the separatist leadership in Kashmir is not against any dialogue or engagement process and asked the Government of India to accept Kashmir as a political dispute.
Mirwaiz while addressing a press conference, shortly after meeting a five-member civil society delegation led by former Union External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha at his Nigeen residence here, said that he had a detailed discussion with the delegation members that included former bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah, who has served in Jammu and Kashmir, ex-Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, journalist Bharat Bhushan and activist Sushobha Barve.
Mirwaiz said “our biggest issue is that the Government of India wants to change the perspective or dilute it by terming it as a law and order problem or security issue or by talking about incentives”.
The moderate separatist leader said that till Kashmir is accepted as a dispute and a process initiated between all the parties towards a final resolution, the uncertainty in Jammu and Kashmir, in some shape, will continue and its impact will remain on the whole subcontinent.
Mirwaiz, who was released yesterday from Cheshmashahi sub-jail after being detained there since August 27, said he talked to Syed Ali Shah Geelani – who heads parallel Hurriyat – over phone this morning.
He said that the separatist leadership including Geelani and Yasin Malik are not against dialogue. “Let me make it absolutely clear, as far as Hurriyat is concerned – whether Geelani, Malik or me, nobody has ever been opposed to any engagement or dialogue but the problem is dialogue for what? Our main focus is resolution of Jammu and Kashmir, acknowledgement of the fact that Kashmir is a dispute, acknowledgement of the fact that India, Pakistan and Kashmir have to work together for resolution of Kashmir issue, the fact that right to self-determination for the people of J-K is non-negotiable,” he said.
Mirwaiz said the time has come when Government of India has to accept this ‘reality’ that the issue of Jammu and Kashmir is a dispute and is not an internal issue. “This is not an electoral issue and not an issue of road, power and water (but) an issue of future of people (of Kashmir),” he said and added that there are only two ways by which the vexed issue of Kashmir can be resolved.
“With regard to resolution of (Kashmir) I feel… there is clear stand of Hurriyat Conference and all other resistance groups that there are only two ways to resolve the issue and they are: either implement the international resolutions with regard to Kashmir or start a decisive dialogue process between India, Pakistan and Kashmir,” he suggested.
Asked do separatist leadership plan to call-off agitation in Kashmir valley by stopping issuing protest calendars, the Mirwaiz said: “Let the Government first stop mass arrests of youth, destruction of properties, slapping of PSA, release those arrested and allow the (separatist) leadership to sit together and discuss, then we will take all stakeholders on board and devise a strategy.”
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