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| Call third RTC : Mufti to PM | | |
JAMMU, FEB 13
PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to immediately call third round table conference to discuss the reports of the five working groups constituted by him towards resolving the issue of Kashmir. He also expressed hope that mainstream political party National Conference and separatist groups should also be roped in to join the round table conference for permanent settlement of the Kashmir issue.
During his half an hour long interaction with media persons here at the party headquarters on Tuesday, former Chief Minister also demanded withdrawal of security forces from the Kashmir valley and scrapping of Armed forces special powers act. He said the self-rule proposal drafted by his party is aimed at addressing the internal and external dimensions of the issue of Kashmir and is a wider concept than Autonomy.
He said in the days to come we would see Kashmir enfolding as the ground from where the economic cooperation for the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations will take off."
" Lesser people believed me when I first said that bus service will start between both sides of Kashmir and now I am again saying that all economic experiments will start from this soil as the Kashmir is emerging as the hub of peoples movement.
Indicating that the issue of withdrawal of armed forces is dear to PDP Mufti said through our cabinet ministers we would get this issue raised at the cabinet meeting."Our ministers would ask the cabinet to write to the central government to withdraw troops from the state in a phased manner and also the Armed Forces Special Powers Act," he said. After this the final decision could be taken by the unified command and the defence minister but we will go ahead with our demand as situation has shown signs of improvement. He however declined any comments when asked what if state cabinet would fail to recommend it to the central government.
The atmosphere of peace is prevailing in Kashmir and presence of security forces in every village and city is undesirable, he explained.
Acknowledging the role of Congress party in resolving Punjab turmoil Mufti hoped that congress party has a good track record of sorting out political differences and resolving such issues through dialogue. Hinting at the possibility of holding early assembly election in the state in the year 2008, Mufti said i donot think anyone is demanding early polls as the present Assembly had a mandate till October 2008 He explained that in case the ultimate resolution of Kashmir issue gets approval from the people in Kashmir it should be welcome by everone.I would welcome polls in that scenario as it is important that whatever solution set is prepared by the government of India is rattified by the people in Jammu and Kashmir,Mufti elaborated.
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