SRINAGAR, 17 May — A senior Indian official spearheading a peace dialogue with Kashmiri groups has said India is not averse to engaging Pakistan in “meaningful” talks to end an 11-year-old rebellion in the troubled region.
“The government of India is not averse to engage Pakistan in meaningful talks on Jammu and Kashmir and is hopeful that Pakistan will cooperate with India and initiate measures that would facilitate the process,” K.C. Pant said in a letter.
The Indian government last month asked Pant, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and a former Union minister, to lead peace talks with a broad range of groups in Kashmir.
An aide to Pant delivered the letter to senior separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah on Tuesday in response to his queries about the talks.
Copies of the letter were given to reporters at a news conference yesterday by the Jammu Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (JKDFP), which is headed by Shah.
But prominent Kashmiri leader and chief of the JKDFP, Shabir Shah yesterday pulled out of a planned dialogue with Pant. Tahiri, announcing Shah’s volte face to reporters, said: “They (the activists) have every right to warn us as we have to warn those who believe that Shabir Shah would succumb to the lure of power in the state to the detriment of the ongoing struggle here.” He did not elaborate. Shah, who held prolonged talks with his supporters, chose to maintain a low profile.
Most of Tahiri’s briefing was devoted to praising the activists, who, he said, had made “great sacrifices.” The JKDFP, he said, would “work to evolve a national consensus over a complex problem like Kashmir and such a consensus would take a long time.”
Shah’s turnabout was contrary to his earlier assertions that nobody should shy away from a dialogue with anybody as, according to him, “Kashmir had a strong case and anybody shying away from dialogue was not doing Kashmiris a great service.”
India has long refused to include Pakistan in talks over the disputed territory, insisting that dialogue with the neighbor can resume only after it stops aiding Kashmiri activists.
Pakistan denies the accusation.
“The government of India has taken and is willing to take such steps as would contribute to a meaningful dialogue; being the initiators, we are committed to its success,” the letter said. “It was in this spirit that the prime minister had taken various initiatives like the Lahore visit, announcement of a unilateral cease-fire etc.,” the letter added.
India announced a unilateral cease-fire in Kashmir in November. But most of the Kashmiri groups have rejected the truce and stepped up attacks against Indian security forces.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made a visit to Lahore in 1999 to seek peace between the two nuclear-capable neighbors.
Shah said earlier this month that he wanted the Indian government to clarify whether the talks were aimed at resolving the “basic issue of Kashmir”. Kashmir’s main separatist alliance, the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, has rejected the invitation to talks, calling it “a train going nowhere” unless Pakistan was included.
