To compare Kashmir to that of sectarian war and power struggle in Syria is deception and propaganda
Srinagar: The Joint Resistance leadership (JRL) on Tuesday said that the Government of India’s appointment of an interlocutor is just a time buying tactic and added that to engage in this ‘futile’ exercise will undermine the legitimate and internationally acknowledged Kashmir struggle.
JRL comprising of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik met at the residence of Geelani at Hyderpora.
The leadership in a joint statement said that while in principle, they have always advocated and supported sincere and productive dialogue as a means of conflict resolution, what it inherently entails from all participants to dialogue is the basic acknowledgment that there is a dispute that has to be resolved. But Govt of India continuously refuses to accept this basic premise and the reality on the ground.
JRL observed that for any Kashmiri to be part of this futile exercise will only undermine the internationally acknowledged legitimate and just struggle, nourished by the blood of our martyrs and great sacrifices and hardships rendered daily by the masses.
JRL added that Sharma’s recent comment that he will come to Kashmir to dissuade the youth from Islam and pursuing their legitimate political aspirations so that Kashmir does not become Syria is misleading.
“To compare the internationally recognized 70-year-old political and humanitarian issue of Kashmir to that of the sectarian war and power struggle in Syria is deception and propaganda as there is no correlation between the two situations,” they said.
JRL further said that Sharma’s assertion that he is coming to the valley with the directive from Government of India to “restore peace” rather than addressing the dispute or its resolution in keeping with the overwhelming majority sentiment of the people limits the scope of any engagement with him and makes it an exercise in futility.
“Unless the Kashmir dispute is understood and addressed in its historical context and in the background of international commitments made over it, lasting peace can neither be achieved in J&K nor in the subcontinent. While the repressive state militaristic approach continues in dealing with Kashmir, to talk of peace and dialogue is also a ploy by the GOI to strike a hard bargain which people of Kashmir and leadership will never succumb to,” JRL’s statement added.
Referring to Indian PM Narendra Modi’s outright dismissal of former Home minister P Chidambaram’s suggestion of restoration of autonomy for J&K , JRL in a statement said,” If Govt of India rejects the demand of its co-political party for restoration of autonomy guaranteed by its own constitution, calling it 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 leadership said in a statement.
JRL said that this clearly indicates that the ‘much hyped’ appointment of Dineshwar Sharma by Govt of India as its interlocutor is nothing more than a tactic to buy time adopted under international pressures and regional compulsions and due to the abysmal failure of the state policy of military repression upon the people of Kashmir.
