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Farooq urges Pak to recognise LOC as border

Washington: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah has urged the United States to advise Pakistan to accept the line-of-control in Kashmir as the border between India and Pakistan and settle the 50-year-old dispute in the interest of peace and prosperity in the region.

Speaking at the Henry L. Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, here yesterday, he said enough blood had been spilled in Kashmir and the time had come to put an end to hostilities once and for all. It was not possible either for India or Pakistan to forcibly take away the parts of Kashmir that the two countries have been in control since 1947.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had the popular mandate to bring about a change in the situation. After a long time, Pakistan had a leader whose decisions could be effective, Dr Abdullah said. He wanted Pakistan to stop the supply of arms and training facilities to militants who indulged in wanton killings in the state.

If Pakistan withdrew its support, terrorism would come to an end immediately, he added. In reply to a Pakistani diplomat, Dr Abdullah said life was normal in Jammu and Kashmir before the commencement of militancy eight years ago. Militancy had compelled the state to deploy security forces in large numbers and adopt draconian laws, as a result of which Muslims were dying, be it from the bullet of a terrorist or the security forces.

In reply to another question, he opposed the Pakistani demand for third party mediation to settle the Kashmir dispute. ''Leaders of the two countries are competent enough to settle their problems,'' he added. He welcomed the decision of the Lahore summit between Prime Ministers A B Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif and said it had opened the doors for a new kind of bilateralism, throwing up the possibilities of a common market and greater exchanges in various fields.

Dr Abdullah said his father the late Sheikh Abdullah visited Pakistan in 1964 at the behest of the then Prime Minister Pandit Nehru to explore possibilities of a settlement on the Kashmir dispute. He did not carry any specific proposal. Many ideas were discussed and the only concrete suggestion that emerged was that the then Pakistani military ruler Field Marshall Ayub Khan would visit India for further talks. In between, Nehru died and his initiative was forgotten, he added. He said his government was trying to restore normalcy in the state by creating more economic opportunities. He said efforts were also being made to bring about decentralisation of power and give autonomy to the state's various regions. A report has already been prepared on the subject and after a wider discussion, steps would be taken to bring power to the people, he added. UNI 

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