‘India lost chance on Kashmir’: Omar Abdullah

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Mariana Baabar
ISLAMABAD: President National Conference Omar Abdullah has said that India lost a chance to sort out the Kashmir issue in 2005-06 with General Musharraf. Regretting that India had failed to grab the opportunity offered by Islamabad, Abdullah said that Gen Musharraf was a single window system and India flunked this golden opportunity.

“I have said that we will not have an opportunity like this. I also said that the door is closing, it’s not going to remain open forever and let’s grab this opportunity now or we’ll lose and it might be the only opportunity of my generation. We lost it. It’s gone. Musharraf was a single window system so to speak, that we had to deal with in Pakistan. That window has gone,” Omar said in an interview with CNN-IBN’s, Devil’s Advocate.

He said that everyone was to blame for this missed opportunity. “We flunked it. All of us, we all played a part in it. Well, we are living to rue it now. Had we worked out a solution with Pakistan in 2006-2007, we wouldn’t have seen Kashmir inflamed in 2008.”

However, Abdullah was firm in his views regarding Azadi, the slogans that are being heard in Srinagar these days. “I do not believe that independence for Kashmir is a feasible or a viable option and I stand by that.

“It’s not my job to follow popular mood. It’s my job to tell the people what I believe is in their interest and I sincerely believe that it is not in their interest. It is not a viable alternative to suggest Azadi or even accession to Pakistan,” he added.

“I believed that you can give Kashmir independence but you cannot give Kashmir freedom under the circumstances that prevail within the Subcontinent – India, Pakistan and even China.”

“Even if India and Pakistan were somehow to decide to give the state independence, it will never be really free,” he added.Omar Abdullah denied that there was any ISI involvement or any Pakistani involvement in the recent protests in the Kashmir Valley. He described them as spontaneous:

“What happened was a spontaneous eruption arising out of the fear that the economic blockade brought into people’s minds because, let’s not forget, even in the worst of times, 1990, 1991, 1992, never was there an effort made to cut off Kashmir economically from the rest of the country. This is the first time it happened and it sparked off the reaction that you saw.”

Speaking about the wider Kashmir problem, Abdullah said that Kashmir needed political handling and not economic reconstruction packages and confidence building measures.

Omar said that there was alienation on the streets of Kashmir, “What more do you want to see when children in the 10th class, 11th class, 12th class from good English missionary schools are out on top of the buses screaming ‘Hum kya chahte hain, azadi. Kashmir banega Pakistan?’

That I think is an indication of the alienation.” The National Conference leader said that Kashmir was ready for elections. “I believe you can have elections... we missed the great opportunity to have a really good election in Jammu and Kashmir a few months ago.

I think Ghulam Nabi Azad was interested in prolonging the life of his government announcing a few populist measures. “Yes, we have had elections in much worse circumstances. 1996, 1998, 1999 elections that I fought, even in 2002. In 2002 the ground situation, militancy-wise was much worse in the state than it is now,” he added.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=17091