May 28, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1429

ISLAMABAD, May 27: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed has urged the coalition government to get rid itself of the US ‘stranglehold’ and frame its own internal and external policies.

“People must feel a clear change in the country’s foreign policy,” he said.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Qazi Hussain said dialogue between India and Pakistan could not be meaningful unless India accepted Kashmir as a disputed territory. He was accompanied by the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, Yasin Malik, who had called on him at his residence.

He said that under the new dispensation Pakistan needed to toughen its stance to put pressure on India to make Kashmir a priority in talks with Pakistan.

Calling upon India to show flexibility on Kashmir issue, he said it was necessary to help resolve the issue, adding that its resolution would benefit India because it would make Central Asian states accessible to it.

Yasin Malik proposed the setting up of a joint committee, comprising representatives of the two countries which could meet the people of Kashmir on both sides of the divide and suggest to both governments ways of ending hostilities and India’s military occupation.