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| Had Kashmir solution been hammered out through backchannel diplomacy ? | | |
Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 2: Were India and Pakistan nearing a solution on the Kashmir issue ?Had this solution been hammered out through backchannel diplomacy during the time Pakistan was ruled by Gen. Parvez Musha-rraf? These questions have assumed significance after Pakistan's former foreign Minister,Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri announced recently that a solution had been reached through backchannel diplomacy and the record of it should be in the office of the Pakistan Presidency.Kasuri has not been the first person to talk about a solution to the Kashmir issue. Earlier former President, Gen. Parvez Musharraf, and former spokesman of the Foreign office, Mohammad Sadiq,who is now Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan,had also stated that the solution was still on table. But the Pakistan foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has denied that any solution had been reached through backchannel diplomacy. He has stated that if there had been any solution it might have been reached between some individuals. But Kasuri is emphatic when he said that there must be some record of the solution in the Presidency.He even explained that the Presidency may not have either referred the solution to the Foreign office or it had been kept ignorant about it. Kasuri said that if there was no record of such a solution how was it that soon after being installed as President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari too had made a mention of the solution.Qureshi,while denying that there was any solution having been reached through backchannel diplomacy,has said that neither the present Government nor the people of Pakistan know about it.This is what precisely people and political leaders in India wish to know.
Since Kashmir is an issue that has to be settled by India and Pakistan it is,therefore,the right of the Indians to know whether such a solution had been hammered out through backchannel diplomacy.If what Kasuri has stated is right people in India have the right to know what was that solution.If a solution had been worked out had it been reached out bet ween individuals or between the Government agencies of the two countries or between a group of senior Government functionaries or political and constitutional experts appointed for the job by Islamabad and by Delhi. Well since the time Gen.Parvez Musharraf initiated steps for resolving the Kashmir issue there have been reports suggesting backchannel diplomatic activities.And one needs to know whether Kasuri is right or Qureshi is wrong. The mystery behind this solution can be resolved if Delhi in general and the foreign ministry in particular come out with a statement on the issue.
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