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| India-Pakistan |
| MusharrafÂ’s Kashmir proposal: India rules out joint management |
| 2007-03-02 |
| NEW DELHI: India has ruled out talks on President Pervez Musahrraf’s concept of ‘joint management’ for Kashmir, saying “it cannot be the basis of a settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kashmir”. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, answering a question in the Rajya Sabha, said that Jammu and Kashmri was an integral part of India and therefore concepts like Musharraf’s “joint management” cannot be the basis of any solution to the Kashmir issue. “Any demilitarisation or re-deployment of security forces within the territory is a sovereign decision of the Indian government, based on our own assessment or the prevailing security situation,” Mukherjee said. He told the house that President Musharraf, in an interview, had suggested the identification of the areas to which these proposals of making the LoC irrelevant, demilitarisation and joint management would apply. He said during the last round of the Foreign Secretary-level talks in January 2006, several proposals, including these four concepts, were discussed. Mukherjee said further that Jammu and Kashmir enjoys autonomy under the Indian Constitution and has a democratically elected government in place. “On the other hand, there is only nominal autonomy in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and there has been no popular election in Gilgit-Baltistan, which does not even have a legal or constitutional status,” he told the upper house. He also denied that Hurriyat leaders had submitted any proposal for solution of Kashmir issue after their return from Pakistan. Mukherjee further told the House that during his recent meetings with Pakistani counterpart Khursheed Kasuri, it was decided that the officials would meet soon to address the issue of Siachen. “We agreed to expedite the liberalisation of the visa regime and the agreements on reducing the risk of accidents relating to nuclear weapons, speedy return of inadvertent line crossers and prevention of incidents at sea,” he stated. He also said that both sides had also agreed to facilitate the movement of diplomats to Noida and Gurgaon in India and Taxila and Hasan Abdal in Pakistan. “On Sir Creek, they agreed that the officials would be directed to expedite the joint survey,” he said. |
| Posted by:John Frum |
| #1 "Actually, we don't trust you monkeys as far as we could throw your goddamned country. But thanks for askin'..." |
| Posted by: mojo 2007-03-02 10:41 |