Srinagar: With the defense minister asking separatists to initiate talks on Kashmir under Indian constitution ambit, the pro-establishment parties here differ in the opinion over the issue with the opposition PDP stresses for the ‘unconditional’ talks with the separatists.
“We cannot expect the separatists to give up the demand. If there are pre-conditions set, then what is dialogue all about,” asked PDP chief spokesman Naeem Akhtar. He further told KNS that BJP government at New Delhi must adopt Vajpayee’s line of action wherein he had unconditional dialogue with the separatist groups of Kashmir.
Akhtar stated that the new government took the appreciative step by addressing the external dimension of the problem and that the government should replicate what Vajpayee had done, ‘or else we will reach nowhere’.
Over the statement of AFSPA revocation by Arun Jaitley wherein he maintained that the scraping of the law depends on the situation on ground, Akhtar stated that the same is an important issue and cannot be ‘evaded’. “It was not expected even that the law would go by Jaitley’s statement. Omar Abdullah reduced it as a mere slogan. At one time he stated that the law would go within two three days. The statement of such nature was made just to hush up the matter of Haji Yousuf’s murder case. Later Omar stated that it is his mission of life to revoke AFSPA- May god grant him more life,” said PDP chief spokesman. He added that PDP hopes that the revocation of the AFSPA shall be addressed with the consensus of all the stakeholders.
The state Congress here while commenting upon the AFSPA revocation stated that the law must go from the areas that are normal with less or no activities of violence. “We say that AFSPA must be revoked from the areas that are normal and have less or no militant activities,” said senior Congress leader and state Congress vice-president Ghulam Nabi Monga. He added that the dialogue between New Delhi and separatist leaders must be initiated at an earliest. “Why separatists are reluctant in entering into the dialogue. Let they put their demands on table and so that basic issue gets addressed by both the parties for prevalence of peace in the region.”