President of pro-India political party, National Conference Omar Abdullah has said that India lost a "golden opportunity" to resolve the Kashmir issue in 2005-06. He said that General Musharraf was a single window system and India "flunked this golden opportunity".
“I have said that we will not have an opportunity like this. I also said that the door is closing, it’s not going to remain open forever and let’s grab this opportunity now or we’ll lose and it might be the only opportunity of my generation. We lost it. It’s gone. Musharraf was a single window system so to speak, that we had to deal with in Pakistan. That window has gone,” Omar said in an interview with CNN-IBN's, Devil's Advocate. “We flunked it. All of us, we all played a part in it. Well, we are living to rue it now. Had we worked out a solution with Pakistan in 2006-2007, we wouldn’t have seen Kashmir inflamed in 2008.”
The NC president answered volley of questions from the programme anchor, Karan Thapar.
Demand for Azadi:
"I do not believe that independence for Kashmir is a feasible or a viable option and I stand by that. It is not a viable alternative to suggest Azadi or even accession to Pakistan. I believed that you can give Kashmir independence but you cannot give Kashmir freedom under the circumstances that prevail within the Subcontinent – India, Pakistan and even China."
Recent protests:
"What happened was a spontaneous eruption arising out of the fear that the economic blockade brought into people’s minds because, let’s not forget, even in the worst of times, 1990, 1991, 1992, never was there an effort made to cut off Kashmir economically from the rest of the country. This is the first time it happened and it sparked off the reaction that you saw."
Elections:
"I believe you can have elections... we missed the great opportunity to have a really good election in Jammu and Kashmir a few months ago. I think Ghulam Nabi Azad was interested in prolonging the life of his government announcing a few populist measures. We have had elections in much worse circumstances. 1996, 1998, 1999 elections that I fought, even in 2002. In 2002 the ground situation, militancy-wise was much worse in the state than it is now."
Alienation:
"What more do you want to see when children in the 10th class, 11th class, 12th class from good English missionary schools are out on top of the buses screaming ‘Hum kya chahte hain, azadi. Kashmir banega Pakistan?’ That I think is an indication of the alienation.”
Full text of the interview: http://www.in.com/active18/readnow/storypage.php?docid=d7467bd08d911f30c96e47450729e68d06704fef&clusid=0&search=true
No comments:
Post a Comment