Lone returning today

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, DEC. 10 A senior All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader, Mr. Abdul Ghani Lone, is returning to India tomorrow after his three-and-a-half-week stay in Pakistan.

In an informal chat with The Hindu here today, Mr. Lone said he would be camping in New Delhi for a few days before returning to Srinagar. His stay in Delhi is more to do with an overdue medical check-up rather than developments centered on Kashmir.

He said he was in touch with the APHC leaders camping in Delhi as well as those in Srinagar ever since the November 19 Indian initiative ``I look forward to sharing my experiences, in Pakistan and particularly in `Azad Kashmir', with them''. Asked to sum up the experiences of his visit, Mr. Lone said ``interacting with the whole gamut of opinion in Pakistan and `Azad Kashmir' is a very good experience. I am particularly happy with the positive response of the Pakistan Government to the announcement made by Mr. A.B. Vajpayee''.

He said there were vested interests in both India and Pakistan that did not want the Kashmir problem to be resolved. ``These include extremist organisations, the intelligence agencies and some sections of the armed forces''.

Mr. Lone said he had an opportunity to visit parts of `Azad Kashmir' and gain first-hand knowledge of the state of affairs there. ``I have expressed views freely and frankly during the course of my visit there'', he said.

Some of the comments made by Mr. Lone both in Pakistan and in Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK) reportedly did not go down well with his hosts. He had remarked that barring `religious freedom', the people in the region could not boast of any other freedom.

In the course of his meetings and interaction with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore, Mr. Lone had been brutally frank in telling his hosts that a country like Pakistan with no democracy could not be relied upon to help the cause of Kashmiris.

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Section  : International
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