National Conference chief Omar Abdullah on Friday said the United Progressive Alliance government has let the initiative on Kashmir slip into Pakistani hands both internationally and internally.
Speaking to rediff.com from his residence in Srinagar, Abdullah said it was a mistake to allow Hurriyat leaders to travel in private vehicles to the Kaman bridge on the Line of Control before they crossed over to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
"The bus [karwan-e-aman -- the bus that plies passengers from Srinagar to Kaman bridge on their way to PoK] has been rendered irrelevant by this single step," Abdullah said.
"Didn't the government know that they [the Hurriyat leaders] were bent upon travelling in their own vehicles. If the government of India is now upset that the Hurriyat leaders did not use the bus, it should have stopped them. Tomorrow -- I mean whenever I decide to go -- I would not go by that ramshackle bus. I would go in my own vehicle," Abdullah said.
Also see: Letting Hurriyat visit PoK mistake -- Experts
The NC leader said he could not understand why the Hurriyat leaders were denied passports by the Indian government. "Now, they are in PoK and they are going to enter Pakistan. They will do it without carrying Indian passports. We have let Pakistan take the initiative away from us," he said.
Giving another example of how the government lets events overtake its plans, he said three months back Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil had promised to set up a committee on autonomy for Kashmir. "I and my father, Dr Farooq Abdullah, went and met him. Till date no committee has been set up. We suddenly hear Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, telling us that the government of India is willing to discuss the issue of autonomy because the President of Pakistan General Musharraf says so," Abdullah said.
When asked if a solution to Kashmir could be found before 2007, the deadline set by Musharraf, Abdullah said: "I wish this thing is sorted out soon, but I do not see it happening before 2007," he said.
Asked what tangible gain he saw accruing from the Hurriyat trip, Abdullah said: "Hurriyat leaders, and particularly Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, have said in a number of interviews that they would like to go to PoK and talk to the mujahideen and see how they can bring about normalcy in Kashmir. But now that they are in PoK, the Mirwaiz says that the delegation is there to just see the ground situation. First they hype the trip, and now they tell us not to expect much of it."
Asking the Pakistani leadership to accept that the Hurriyat Conference is not the sole representative of the Kashmiri people, Abdullah said: "In that respect Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan [appointed chairman in 2001 of Pakistan's National Kashmir Committee, which spearheads Islamabad's efforts for a solution to the Kashmir problem] was more realistic in his approach. But the trouble is that Pakistani stand keeps changing. When Musharraf was here he said that I, Mehbooba Mufti and Mirwaiz were going to be the next generation leaders. Once he was back in Pakistan he said that there were others in the fray as well."
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