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Tariq Bhat
Tariq Bhat

VALLEY UNREST

Kashmiri separatists rule out talks with interlocutor

India Kashmir Strike Representative image | AP

The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) of Kashmiri separatists on Tuesday ruled out talks with Centre's interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma calling it an “exercise in futility”.

"Sharma's assertion that he is coming to the Valley with the directive from the government of India to restore peace rather than addressing the dispute limits the scope of any engagement with him and makes it an exercise in futility," a JRL spokesman said in a statement.

The JRL members comprise radical Syed Ali Geelani, and two moderates, Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik.

The JRL had spearheaded the last year's uprising by issuing protest calendars for five months after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani and two of his associates.

The spokesman said the decision of not meeting the interlocutor was taken at a meeting at the residence of Geelani on Tuesday.

“While in principle pro-freedom leadership has always advocated and supported sincere and productive dialogue as a means of conflict resolution over Jammu and  Kashmir,  what it inherently entails from all participants to dialogue is the basic acknowledgment that there is a dispute that has to be resolved,” the spokesman said. 

But the government of India continuously refuses to accept this basic premise and the reality on the ground, he added.

He said the appointment of Sharma, a former Intelligence Bureau chief, is due to international pressure, regional compulsions and abysmal failure of the state policy of repression against the people of Kashmir.

Referring to reaction on former Home Minister P. Chidambaram's statement that when people in Kashmir seek Aazdi they actually means autonomy, the spokesman said when even the demand for the restoration of autonomy guaranteed by its own constitution is termed as a betrayal with soldiers and hence unacceptable, how will such a dispensation in New Delhi address or engage with the Kashmiri people's political will and aspiration of self-determination for which people have been relentlessly struggling and sacrificing for the past 70 years.

The spokesman said unless the Kashmir dispute is understood and addressed in its historical context and international commitments made by India, a lasting peace can neither be achieved in J&K nor in the subcontinent.

“While the military repression continues in Kashmir, the talk of peace and dialogue is only a ploy to strike a bargain that people of Kashmir and leadership will never succumb to,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman said for any Kashmiri, to be part of this futile exercise will only undermine their internationally acknowledged legitimate struggle, nourished by the blood of their martyrs and great sacrifices and hardships rendered daily by the people.

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