Srinagar, February 22
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s initiative to convene a roundtable conference on Kashmir has suffered a setback after a majority of separatist and a few top political leaders rejected their participation in the meet, citing different reasons for their refusal.
Prominent separatist groups such as the moderate Hurriyat Conference, the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), the People’s Conference, the Kashmir Bar Association and the breakaway Hurriyat Conference have all declined to attend the roundtable in New Delhi on February 25.
Significantly, among these groups the moderate Hurriyat Conference, the JKLF and the People’s Conference have already held talks with the Prime Minister.
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) chief patron Farooq Abdullah and former state Tourism Minister and dissident People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Ghulam Hassan Mir too have refused to attend the roundtable conference.
The first to deflate the roundtable balloon was DFP chief Shabir Ahmed Shah who had declined participation in the conference, saying time was not conducive for holding such a meet.
Then came the decision by breakaway Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani that he would not attend the meet, saying the ongoing two-year-old peace process had failed to produce the desired results.
Moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq too decided to stay away from the roundtable, saying time was not appropriate to convene such a meeting which would only “create confusion”.
“The Prime Minister announced the roundtable conference without any agenda,” he added.
JKLF Chairman Yasin Malik, People’s Conference chief Sajjad Ghani Lone and the Kashmir Bar Association have also declined the invite.
Meanwhile, Democratic Liberation Party (DLP) Chairman Hashim Qureshi today decided to attend the roundtable conference.
Asserting that the gun was no solution to the Kashmir problem, the PDP President, Ms Mehbooba Mufti, here today sought a “respectable solution” through self-rule and by giving Pakistan its role in resolving the Kashmir issue. Lashing out at the National Conference, she said that resolution of Kashmir issue could be possible only if economic problems of the state were solved and its people, particularly the youth, taken into confidence.
Ms Mufti was addressing party workers at the Sher-e-Kashmir Park ahead of the roundtable conference convened by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi on Saturday.
Ms Mufti welcomed the scheduled roundtable meeting and said that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) would go with its agenda of self-rule that was a good solution to the Kashmir imbroglio. Ms Mufti also sought to respect Article 370 giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir, which had been eroded from time to time.
JAMMU:
The state BJP president, Dr Nirmal Singh, on Wednesday welcomed the initiative of the Centre to make the ongoing peace process in the state more broadbased and all-inclusive with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, organising a roundtable conference of all parties at Delhi on February 25.
Dr Nirmal Singh told media persons here that the proposed roundtable conference was a step in the right direction as it would provide an opportunity to the hitherto ignored right-thinking people and well-wishers of the country to express their views on the genesis and solution of the so-called Kashmir problem as well as other burning issues the state was facing.
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