ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that Pakistan should not forget the core issue of Kashmir, during peace talks with India.
Besides, people of Kashmir should also be involved in the negotiations because they are the main stakeholders.
He said this at a discussion “Prospects of Resolving the Kashmir Dispute: Views from the APHC” organised by Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS), on Wednesday, in Islamabad.
Mirwaiz said that the Kashmiris have been struggling for the implementation of United Nations resolution for decades. He demanded that the support of Pakistan should be unconditional.
People of Kashmir feel that Pakistan is not raising its voice for Kashmiris after 2008, he added. He suggested that both India and Pakistan should solve the core issue — Kashmir — first.
Senior leader of the APHC, Professor Abdul Ghani Butt warned that both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and a dispute could lead to a nuclear war.
He said that he believed that both countries should come close in terms of economic relations but the Kashmir conflict should be resolved first. However, he said that he was hopeful that eventually people of Kashmir would get some relief.
Prof Butt said that people of Kashmir might not win a conventional war against the Indian army but they would never accept defeat.
Another leader Bilal Ghani Lone said that people of Kashmir should be allowed to decide their own future.
“We know better about the ground realities, so we should be allowed to take part in resolving the issue. It is the right of the people of Kashmir to decide if they want to be with Pakistan or India,” he said.
While replying to questions Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that Syed Ali Shah Gilani and other leaders did not come to Pakistan because they thought the visit would not be beneficial for the Kashmir cause.
“At the moment in occupied Kashmir, Hindus of Jammu and Buddhists of Ladakh are not interested in becoming part of Pakistan. On the other hand, in Pakistan, Gilgit-Baltistan has become a province,” he said.
Abdul Ghani Butt demanded that Pakistan should have played a stronger role before the start of peace talks with India. “It was possible for Pakistan to get relief for the people of Kashmir by pushing for demilitarisation in the region,” he said.
Director-General Institute of Strategic Studies, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said that because of the visit of APHC leaders, the issue of Kashmir had been highlighted and he hoped that because of the peace process between India and Pakistan, the benefit would pass on to the Kashmiri people.