J&K chief minister slams Modi-government for suspending talks with Pakistan

New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday attacked the Narendra Modi government for suspending talks with Pakistan over a “cup of tea” with separatist Hurriyat Conference and said India has set up a difficult benchmark for resumption of talks. [caption id=“attachment_1689783” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah. AFP[/caption] Speaking on a variety of issues including the resolution passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council seeking resumption of dialogue with Pakistan, Omar said cancellation of talks with Pakistan was “demoralising” people of his state. The CM also debunked BJP’s ‘Mission-44’ for the forthcoming Assembly elections, saying it was one of those nice Bollywood glitz slogans like ’love jihad’. “What BJP is trying to do is to cosy up to separatists so that they can take advantage of boycott call in some seats and basically wrest those seats away into their kitty but the 44 number is a pipe dream, that’s not happening,” he said. On the cancellation of talks, Omar said, “It basically just demoralises the people because at the end of the day we only see a solution emerging out of dialogue. We had 25 years of violence, we had wars, we had skirmishes but we haven’t seen a solution. “The closest we have come to the solution is through dialogue, first with the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf and then with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Musharraf and with Nawaz Sharif and Singh. We were hoping that process will actually carry on,” Omar said in an interview on Headlines Today. He said the Modi government had raised the expectations of the people of the state, which bore the brunt of failure of talks. “You are the ones who were all buddy buddy sending each other shawls and saris and mangoes and all the rest of it. All that you put in Punjabi ‘jhapiyan-pappian’ (hugs and kisses). What happened to all that? You raised our expectations and hopes that this process was going to go forward and now over a cup of tea you dash them,” he said. The government cancelled foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan scheduled for August 25 after Islamabad refused to agree to India’s demand of not entertaining Hurriyat leaders from Jammu and Kashmir. Asked whether Pakistan was interfering in India’s internal affairs by inviting Hurriyat for a discussion on Kashmir, Omar said, “Look Pakistan has interfered in India’s internal affairs for how long now. This is the point that I make. By suspending the dialogue in the past, have you stopped Pakistan from interfering in India’s internal affairs. Defending the recent resolution passed by the Legislative Council urging the Centre to resume talks with Pakistan, he said while the legality of the resolution can be answered by the Council chairperson “they have right to an opinion. This is a democratic set up. Why should they be forbidden from expressing their opinion?” He said the resolution expressed sentiments of people of Jammu and Kashmir who suffered on account of poor relations between India and Pakistan and said people of his state have seen in recent years that every time the dialogue process was suspended for some reason or another, it resumed without the stated objective having been realised. He, however, made it clear that the state cannot force the government to talk. “Obviously the decision to talk, who to talk to, when to talk to, that is the decision of government of India. But how can you tell us that we cant express an opinion.” He rejected the charge that the resolution was a stage managed show by ruling National Conference in view of ensuing elections and said the resolution was moved by the Chairman of Legislative Council who belongs to Congress. “All that is reflected behind this resolution is our dissatisfaction with the way the things are going with our worry that Jammu and Kashmir has always borne the brunt of a breakdown in relations between India and Pakistan. That we see no alternative to dialogue and we, in this case the legislative council, has expressed its opinion,” he said.PTI