Centre scuttling Kashmir talks: Lone

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 12. Admitting that the Hurriyat Conference had been holding informal talks with the Centre in the past to reach a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir problem, the senior Hurriyat leader, Mr. Abdul Gani Lone, today accused the Centre of scuttling the effort by going back on the modalities agreed upon by the two sides.

He said at a press conference here that one of the agreed terms of reference was to permit the Hurriyat leaders to visit Pakistan but the Government imposed its own conditions. ``We had also requested the Government not to announce the name of Mr. K.C. Pant as the Centre's interlocutor on Kashmir. We wanted the Government to take certain confidence-building measures to show that it was sincere about solving the Kashmir problem,'' he said.

Asserting the Hurriyat was not averse to talks, Mr. Lone said it wanted meaningful dialogue with all the parties concerned. ``Options are limited. Either the people of Kashmir will have to be consulted, and their genuine aspirations fulfilled or the other way out is to subjugate the people of Kashmir by force,'' he said in a statement.

At the same time, the Pakistani establishment should also note that Kashmiris ``did not make sacrifices to present Kashmir on a platter to them''. The people of the State alone had the right to decide their future. He said the Governments in India and Pakistan disagreed on every facet of the Kashmir issue but agreed on the need to keep the Kashmiris out of any dialogue.

He said the Hurriyat was aware of the difficulties in holding a plebiscite and had suggested that any agreed solution reached between the parties concerned was acceptable to it. ``The Indian Government is more interested in maligning such elements and abetting their physical elimination rather than indulging in a constructive appraisal of the proposal.'' On the recent attacks on his life, Mr. Lone said he had to face assaults from all sides because he was pursuing an independent course of action. He held the State Government and the ``covert agencies on either side of the LoC'' responsible for the attempts on him. ``These three forces seem to have a tacit understanding on the elimination of independent voices, irrespective of their ideological belief.''

Mr. Lone accused the State Government of ``abetting'' the recent attack on him by removing the security provided to him. He charged the Chief Minister with using resources and powers to intimidate or eliminate all moderate elements keen on a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue.

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