Kashmir separatists reject India dialogue offer

Peace in Kashmir may be further out of sight following a rejection of dialogue with India

By Mukhtar Ahmad
Special to CNN

SRINAGAR, India -- Kashmir's separatist All Parties Huriyat Conference (APHC) executive has rejected an Indian offer for a dialogue calling it "an exercise to further confuse the dispute."

Asserting there would be no beneficial results from a dialogue between New Delhi and Huriyat, a statement released here said: “India wants to deal with Kashmir as an internal, law and order problem and this is contrary to the proclaimed stand of the people of Kashmir."

IN DEPTH Kashmir: Where conflict rules

The decision followed stiff opposition by the majority of 23 general council members to dialogue with government negotiator K.C. Pant.

“We don’t want to board a train going nowhere,” APHC Chairman Professor Abdul Gani Bhat said.

“The Kashmir problem can be resolved only through tri-partite talks involving all the three parties -- India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Peace cannot be achieved in vaccum,” he said.

Ridicule

The statement ridiculed the Indian government for putting what it called "conditions on their own promises" when it said that Pant failed to acknowledge that there were three parties involved.

“India is promise-bound to allow APHC to visit Pakistan as that visit would enable us talk to the Pakistan government and the militants," it said.

"Only an honest and unconditional tri-partite dialogue between India, Pakistan and the people of the troubled state can yield permanent peace in Kashmir."

The Huriyat refused to accept that Pant's offer would bring down the level of violence in the state, or help in any way to pave way for peace.

Castigating the Indian government for always playing a time-buying game in Kashmir, the statement said: “Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee’s announcement of a unilateral ceasefire had generated a ray of hope, but the same was quickly extinguished by the hardline forces within the Indian government.

"The result has been that the ceasefire exercise has come to mean nothing to the people of the state whose daily sufferings have in fact multiplied during this period.”

Grenade attacks

Violence has become the norm in the troubled region of Kashmir

Militants attacked Huriyat headquarters during Monday's general council meeting injuring three Awami Action Committee (AAC) activists who were later hospitalized. AAC is a constituent of APHC.

The APHC, which came into being in 1993, claims to be the “premier political representative of the Kashmiri people.”

With its rejection of the Pant offer as a consensus decision any concern that there was an imminent split within the APHC has dissolved.

The Indian government announced a unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir in November last year.

See related sites about Asia

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.