ISLAMABAD, Aug 24: The chairman of the People’s Conference in occupied Kashmir, Sajjad Lone, has said that peace cannot be achieved in the region without the initiation of tripartite dialogue.

Speaking at BBC’s Question Time India programme, he said: “Until and unless there is a thrust from within India and Pakistan and the participation of the Kashmiri people, there is no other way where peace could be achieved.”

He said both the countries had held many summits, they failed and they were due to fail in the future also unless the people who had been rendering sacrifices for the last 13 years were taken into account.

Mr Lone said: “I can visualize strong peace winds blowing across India and Pakistan but we cannot forget the visible and invisible hands of the international community which are directing these winds.”

He urged the international community to play its due role in starting negotiation process between the two countries to bring peace and resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

He said there would be no normalcy in occupied Kashmir without resolution of the issue. “The basic issue is the resolution of the Kashmir problem and without that there will be no normalcy,” he said.

Violence was troubling the people of Kashmir, he said.

He said the assembly of occupied Kashmir had passed a resolution for autonomy under the Indian constitution but even that was rejected by the Delhi government. Sentiment demanded a solution outside the Indian constitution, he said.

He said occupied Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Saeed never expressed remorse when he was Indian home minister and people were massacred and women raped.—APP