LAHORE, March 13: The Awami National Party (ANP) is against solving the Kashmir issue by dividing the Valley as it fears that the solution will not be in the national interest.

Any settlement of the issue without taking into confidence the Kashmiris would be unacceptable to the people of Kashmir, ANP president Ehsan Wyne told reporters here on Thursday.

The party was also against holding of plebiscite to decide the fate of Kashmiris for it gave them the right to chose between Pakistan and India but not allowed them to have their own independent and sovereign state, he said.

Mr Wyne said if the Valley was divided between Pakistan and India, as statements of some ministers suggest, it would not be in the country’s interest.

People in both sides of Kashmir would then launch unification movements and the country would remain involved in this problem, he argued.

“If Kashmiris are no longer ready to be slaves of India, they will not want to remain so in Pakistan.”

Opposing infiltration into Kashmir, Mr Wyne said inclusion of the element of “religious extremism” into the otherwise peaceful and democratic struggle of Kashmiris had damaged their cause and presented their freedom movement as a terror activity before the world.

He, however, pledged his party’s support for the Kashmiris freedom movement whether it was peaceful or militant.

The ANP chief believed that the foundation for the Kashmir crisis was laid when the Muslim League in 1947 opposed Congress’s suggestion that the people of princely states should be allowed to chose between joining India or Pakistan.

The League demanded that heads of states should be authorized to accede to any of the two countries, for it believed that through it Pakistan would be able to get hold on the rich Hyderabad and Joonagarh states as their princes were Muslims.

But India, taking advantage of geographical factors, occupied the two states while the Sikh Maharaja of Kashmir acceded to India, he added, regretting that all it happened due to depriving the masses of their right to franchise.