Maulana Abbas terms All Parties Delegation visit a futile exercise

Srinagar, Sept 19, 2010:

Senior leader of Hurriyat Conference and Chief Patron of Jammu & Kashmir Ittihadul Muslimeen (JKIM) Maulana Mohammad Abbas Ansari has said that the Indian All Parties Delegation's proposed visit to Kashmir is a futile exercise primed for deceiving International Community and wasting time as it would fetch nothing but confusion. Asking Indian Government to adopt a realistic approach, the ex chairman of Hurriyat Conference (M), in a statement issued in Srinagar today said holding meetings with the delegation won’t serve any purpose.

Reiterating that Kashmir is a political dispute which could be resolved through peaceful negotiations, Maulana Ansari said that we’ve never been against the talks and APHC was committed to bring about a peaceful and political solution to the dispute through meaningful dialogue, but talks and atrocities cannot go together. So the torture, killing and arrest of innocent civilians must stop immediately.

"Unless Indian Government officially accepts to solve the Kashmir issue as per the wishes and aspirations of Kashmiri people through tripartite dialogue, and releases all the prisoners concerned, repeals AFSPA and other draconian laws, starts demilitarization, halts Human Rights Violations; there is no justification of dialogue even the bilateral one. All this will be a futile exercise and wastage of time. Kashmiris will keep on struggling against Indian rule more and more force and rigidity," Maulana said.

Referring to the Indian prime minister’s All Parties meeting and the decision to send an All-party delegation to the troubled Kashmir Valley to meet all sections of people and gather all shades of opinion, Maulana Abbas Said: "nobody in Kashmir will accept interaction with Indian Political parties as we have already put forward the suggestions and conditions for the talks before Indian government. We stick to our principle stand for future talks and will accept only tripartite dialogue that also for the resolution of the Kashmir issue once for all."

He said that Kashmir is an internationally accepted disputed territory with which the future of millions of people is associated. The international community stands committed to the people of Kashmir and their right to self-determination and first Prime minister of India Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru has promised at different times to give the people of Kashmir this right. There are three parties to the dispute and till talks are held between all the parties involved especially the true representatives of Kashmiris, no headway can be achieved

Maulana Abbas said that no peace plan can go forward without realization of the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people and reiterated that issue could only be resolved through meaningful dialogue. But such dialogue process was suitable only when the four point confidence building measures put forward by the APHC were taken into consideration. Then a permanent and sustainable solution of the dispute through meaningful parleys and keeping in view the historical perspective of the dispute could be achieved.