|
Kashmiri Leader Asks Pakistan To Reconsider Indian Truce Offer
SRINAGAR (AFP) - A Kashmiri leader has asked Pakistan to reconsider India's ceasefire in the troubled state, a report said Sunday, as four Indian soldiers were killed by Kashmiri fighters.
Abdul Gani Lone, leader of the All Party Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference (APHC), based in the Indian zone of the divided state, told Islamabad's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, that the rejection of the truce by Pakistan-based Kashmir outfits was a mistake.
"I told him that Kashmiris have termed the offer as a 'goodwill gesture' though they are of the opinion that this will not defuse the explosive situation in Kashmir," he was quoted as saying by the Pakistani daily Dawn.
"I told General Musharraf that in my opinion the Indian offer should not be rejected out of hand," he said, adding that India still needed to "improve the offer."
Lone's tone contrasted with the belligerence of the main Kashmiri groups, who had dismissed the proposed truce during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, beginning at the end of November, as a "mockery" of peace efforts.
Pakistan has also described it as a decoy in India's larger plot to impose a military solution in Kashmir, a Himalayan state divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both.
Lone said Musharraf expressed doubts about the Indian gesture.
Meanwhile, four Indian soldiers were killed in an ambush in Indian Kashmir, police said.
Since the truce announcement, Kashmiri fighters are alleged to have killed 10 minority Sikhs and Hindus and four Indian soldiers in Indian Kashmir.
A police official said the Kashmiri fighters, late on Saturday, attacked a patrol of the elite counter-insurgency unit, Rashtriya Rifles, in the frontier region of Kupwara, some 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the state summer capital Srinagar.
The Al-Badr group, the first outfit to reject the Indian ceasefire, claimed responsibility.
Syed Salahuddin, the Pakistan-based leader of Kashmir’s leading Hizbul Mujahideen group, also summarily rejected the Indian ceasefire.
The Hizbul had announced an unprecedented ceasefire in Kashmir in late July but withdrew it after barely two weeks on August 8th, accusing India of intransigence.
Hizbul chief Salahuddin had said further moves to end the 50-year conflict over Kashmir between India and Pakistan would be meaningless unless it was backed by tripartite talks including Pakistan.
On Sunday, a key mediator in the Kashmir peace process said India had agreed to Salahuddin's demands during his July ceasefire but Pakistan scotched the nascent peace moves.
Mansoor Ijaz, a U.S.-based businessman of Pakistani origin, told the Times of India daily that New Delhi had in principle accepted all the conditions set by Kashmiri groups earlier this year.
Ijaz said New Delhi had agreed to accept Kashmir was "disputed" territory and underlined he had "received assurances ... that Pakistan could eventually be involved in a dialogue if Kashmir groups insist on this."
Ijaz said when he returned with the Indian guarantees; he found Hizbul chief Salahuddin a "changed man”.
"Someone had obviously got to him and he insisted that Pakistan be involved from the outset," he said.
Ijaz said Pakistan's military ruler, Musharraf, initially seemed receptive but underlined that "he had to keep domestic sensitivities in mind, meaning that if the [Muslim] fundamentalists did not buy it, he wouldn't be able to do anything."
According to Ijaz, this is precisely what happened.
He said "shadowy Arab sheikhs with deep pockets" backing the groups forced them to spoil the peace moves, adding: "The ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] is no longer an institution for the national security of Pakistan.
"It is an institution of conflict propagation."
|
