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Solarz calls for radical change in US's Kashmir policy

C K Arora in Washington

Former Democratic congressman Stephen J Solarz has suggested a radical change in the US policy on Kashmir, asking Washington to declare Jammu and Kashmir as an ''integral part of India and that it will remain so''.

He made the suggestion at a seminar on US policy on South Asia in Washington yesterday. It would help Pakistan come out of the illusion that it could take Kashmir, he added.

The US has all along been of the opinion that Kashmir is a disputed territory and that India and Pakistan should find its solution through direct talks, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

Solarz also favoured amending the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to declare India and Pakistan as nuclear states and in return the two counties should sign the treaty as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and also make a commitment that they would not indulge in proliferation.

India has refused to sign these international pacts, protesting against their discriminatory nature. Pakistan's stand has been that it would sign these treaties only after India had done so.

Most of the participants did not share Solarz's view, arguing that the US declaration would not help solve the 50-year-old dispute between India and Pakistan.

The erstwhile Soviet Union had made such a declaration but it had been of no avail, they added. Only Professor Sumit Ganguly of Hunter College, New York, sounded somewhat positive. The significance of such a suggestion cannot be underestimated. It would definitely please Indians, he added.

Professor Thomas Thornton of the John Hopkins School of International Studies questioned Washington's right to tell the people of Kashmir that they were part of India.

Former US ambassador to the Ivory Coast Dennis Kux favoured freezing the Kashmir dispute to allow India and Pakistan to develop relations in other fields.

Zamir Akram, deputy chief of mission at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, said his country would not accept even if the US made the declaration as Solarz had suggested.

UNI

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