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Shelve Kashmir issue for 20 years: Qureshi

Holland-based Kashmiri separatist Hashim Qureshi has said that restoration of peace in the volatile south Asian region is paramount and urged India and Pakistan to shelve the dispute for 20 years to create a cordial atmosphere for its resolution.

"The most effective way to resolve the Kashmir issue is to put it in cold storage for 20 years," Qureshi said in a statement a day after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced a ceasefire during the holy month of Ramadan.

Qureshi, chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party, said 12 years of militancy had brought destruction and misery to the people of the state. The militancy had neither won Kashmiris friends at the international level nor "did the Kalashnikov prove any match to the Indian Gun in Kashmir". Instead, the issue brought India and Pakistan close to an armed clash.

Qureshi was responsible for hijacking an Indian Airlines aircraft in 1971. Later, he was imprisoned in Pakistan for several years. He recently expressed his willingness to return to India to stand trial in the hijacking case.

Qureshi said it was essential that "walls of hatred dividing the two countries are razed to the ground. Let the two countries freeze the Kashmir issue and address themselves to other outstanding problems. In that situation, they will develop trade relations and human problems will find some solution."

Kashmiris cannot afford to close their eyes to the need for restoring secularism in the state. "Hindus, Sikhs and people of other communities who have been living in the state for several hundred years have as much right on the soil as the Muslims, who are in a majority," he said.

People in India and Pakistan, he said, desire peace in the region. They are keen to resolve outstanding problems through dialogue. But religious extremists in both countries have raised the walls of hatred.

UNI

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