news details |
|
|
| Confused New Delhi grappling in dark | | KASHMIR ON ITS MIND, UPA THINKS OF: | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Aug 17
• Let the tempers cool down
• Engage peace ambassadors to buy time
• Bring about more transfers in the security hierarchy
• Urge paramilitary forces not to be provoked
Dragging its feet from taking a decision despite the agitation nearing two months, the central government is now looking for some new faces to initiate a fresh round of dialogue with various parties for resolving the ongoing impasse in Jammu and Kashmir.
The fresh search has been launched particularly after the all party committee headed by the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil summarily failed to come close any solution which could have been acceptable to any party either in Jammu or in Kashmir. A decision to form a fresh panel for dialogue was taken after Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had a meeting with the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to discuss the situation obtaining in Jammu and Kashmir.
After External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence late on Friday—ostensibly to discuss the situation in the troubled state—it seems that the Home Minister is now no longer in the picture.
For a government running out of options, perhaps the best way now is to find acceptable emissaries, considering all the failed attempts at negotiations with the separatists.
"Hurriyat was finding itself somewhat sidelined before all this trouble began and it needed an issue on which it could both appear to be moderate and true to its position all along," senior journalist Prem Shankar Jha says. The External Affairs Minister cannot be closely involved because Pakistan is trying to internationalise the issue. Hurriyat chief,
Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, says that the Prime Minister's participation in the peace process would certainly help. "If the PM announces that Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road has been for trade, I think that would certainly calm the situation down in Kashmir," Mirwaiz said.
Observers feel that the government has very little options available before. And out of the available options, the central government can,
The Government now has limited options. It can: let the tempers cool down, as Mirwaiz has already said that they'll ease the protests from Tuesday; engage peace ambassadors to buy time; bring about more transfers in the security hierarchy and urge paramilitary forces not to be provoked as far as possible.
Government sources say that the Prime Minister cannot be fully involved because if the situation goes out of hand he'll have to take the blame. So, it's the trouble-shooter duo of Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony who's taken charge.
Like the trust vote, it is trust of both sides of the Jammu-Kashmir divide that the Government now wants to win. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
