LAHORE: PML-N Information Secretary Mushahidullah Khan rules out the possibility of Pakistan-India talks on Kashmir in near future, saying the Indians are not ready for the purpose.

“Indians don’t wish to listen even a single word on the dispute what to talk of dialogue,” he said while speaking at a conference on Kashmir conflict at the Punjab University here on Wednesday.

The two-day international moot was organized by the Pakistan Study Centre.

Lamenting that the Indians failed to realize the importance of resolving the decades-old dispute, Mr Khan said had the issue been resolved in the early years both India and Pakistan would have by now become developed countries.

He blamed martial laws responsible for creation of terrorists and extremists in the country. “During martial laws such things emerge and a large network surfaces in Karachi overnight,” he said in reference to the establishment of MQM during the Gen Zia rule.

PML-N media coordinator and foreign affairs expert Muhammad Mehdi chided the Musharraf regime for deviating from the national stance on Kashmir through so-called Chenab Formula and finding an “out of the box” solution.

He said the Kashmir issue topped the list of world’s worries despite India’s “ridiculous” mantra that the held valley was its inseparable part. Dr Huma Baqai said Kashmir was the most militarized zone in the world. She asserted that certain factors like Moscow’s surge, China’s assertiveness, regional connectivity through CPEC and Indian desires of becoming a global power would help resolve the Kashmir dispute.

Seasoned AJK politician Sardar Khalid Ibrahim said terrorism was not root-cause but a consequence of the Kashmir conflict. He said Hindu-Muslim trust deficit created Pakistan and Kashmir issue was byproduct of this deficit. He apprehended a limited war between India and Pakistan on the issue.

Former ambassador Javed Husain and Chinese scholars Wang Nan and Sun Hongqi also spoke.

AJK president: Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan said on Wednesday India had been trying to mislead the world on Kashmir’s freedom movement.

He said India launched a propaganda to equate struggle of the Kashmiris against Indian oppression with terrorism.

Addressing a gathering of lawyers at the Lahore High Court Bar Association, the AJK president said India in recent past broke all records of repression in held-Kashmir by blinding hundreds of Kashmiris with lethal weapons.

Mr Khan said Pakistan should forcefully persuade international institutions to ensure a referendum in the held-Kashmir in the light of the UN resolutions.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2017