Abdul Basit meets separatists; protest outside Pakistan High Commission
Pushing India-Pakistan relations into a deeper crisis, Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit went on to meet more Kashimiri separatist leaders on Tuesday. This comes a day after India called off the Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan expressing displeasure over Pakistan engaging the separatists.
Basit met All India Hurriyat Conference (M) leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and JKlF’s Yasin Malik even as hundreds of people protested outside the Pakistani High Commission.
During their meeting, the separatists lauded Pakistan’s effort to involving separatists in the talks. “We appreciated that Pakistan did not surrender to India’s dictatorship attitude,” said Syed Ali Shah Geelani. “We discussed that Pakistan must impress upon India to implement the UN resolution it has signed on Kashmir. Kashmir is an occupied territory. let people of J&K decide their fate,” he added.
It is learnt that the separatists told Basit that they want to be party to the India-Pakistan talks. They also urged Pakistan to push India to resolve Kashmir issue immediately.
Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh had on Monday cancelled her visit to Pakistan to hold talks with her Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry after Basit went ahead with meeting separatists despite Singh urging him to refrain from any such irritants. India termed such acts unacceptable and “continued efforts to interfere” in its internal affairs. The talks, scheduled for August 25, were going to be the first diplomatic contact between the two countries after the new Government took over in India.
Pakistan had on Monday, in a relatively subdued tone, described India’s decision as a setback to its efforts to promote good neighbourly relations and claimed that holding meeting with separatists prior to talks has been its longstanding practice. However on Tuesday, Islamabad said “it was not subservient” to New Delhi and that “Kashmir was not part of India”.
“Pakistan is not subservient to India. It is a sovereign country and a legitimate stakeholder in the Jammu & Kashmir dispute,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said in Islamabad while asserting “Kashmir is not part of India. “ It is a disputed territory. There are numerous UN resolutions,” she said.
On the other hand, the NDA Government has decided to send a tough message to Pakistan. “The Pakistani Government possibly read the new Indian Government wrong,” said an official in Ministry of External Affairs, indicating a toughening of the Government’s attitude.
BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said Pakistan should understand that policies of India with regard to terrorism and separatism remain the same and “there has been a change of Government, leadership and intention (Nijam, Netritva and Neeyat)” here. Naqvi said cancelling talks is some sort of message to Pakistan that both “walking with terrorism and separatism and talk with Government of India” won’t go simultaneously.
“Either Pakistan should talk to the Government of India or they should talk to separatists. They chose to talk to the separatists first in spite of clearly being told that if this persistence is there, it will be difficult to pursue the dialogue,” said law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. “(To know) who is in control of Pakistan today is difficult. There are different voices there. let a clarity emerge,” he added.
Already the Government is upset over the ceasefire violations going on at the international border and loC. “So far the ceasefire violations were happening on loC only, but now they have started happening on the international border as well,” said Defence Minister Arun Jaitely,.
Terming cancellation of talks as “unfortunate” separatist leader Geelani said India reacted in a “childish manner” and added this was not a genuine reason to cancel talks as they have been visiting the Pakistani High Commission regularly to hold talks. Malik questioned Government’s intention to hold dialogue with Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the USA described this development as unfortunate. “It is unfortunate that planned talks between India and Pakistan have fallen through. We continue to support efforts by India and Pakistan to improve all aspects of their bilateral relations... I think irrespective of why either side says the talks were cancelled, or why in fact they were cancelled, what matters now is that both sides take steps to improve their bilateral relations. We’ve been very clear about that directly in conversations with both,” said Marie Harf, deputy spokesperson of US State Department in Washington.