PPP vows to resolve Kashmir issue

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Tuesday reiterated its commitment to resolve the Kashmir dispute, and the normalisation of relations with India on the basis of respect and honour. Clarifying PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari’s remarks in which he reportedly expressed readiness to set aside the Kashmir issue to focus on other aspects for improving relations with India, PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said Zardari was quoted out of context in a section of the media.He said Zardari had told an Indian television channel that the PPP believed in conflict management, simultaneously creating a trading bloc of nations to improve the living conditions of South Asians, and at the same time enhance confidence as key to resolution of outstanding issues. “The PPP believes that peace requires patience and that confidence-building measures are required to create a climate for durable peaceful relations,” he said. He said the PPP favoured normalisation of relations with India as well as the enhancement of South Asian Association for Regional Corporation (SAARC) as a trading bloc. Earlier, the PPP introduced the South Asian Preferential Tariff Agreement besides the concept of visa-free travel for parliamentarians and judges in the SAARC countries,” he added.Babar said; “It is the PPP’s vision that we should not unilaterally give up United Nations resolutions, and let any single issue hold hostage relations in the subcontinent.” staff report

Separatists irked by Zardari's remark on Kashmir

Srinagar: Kashmiri separatists have reacted angrily to Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari's statement expressing readiness to set aside the Kashmir issue to focus on other aspects for improving relations with India.
"Any delay in resolution of the Kashmir dispute will have serious ramifications not only for Kashmir but for South Asia," said Abdul Gani Bhat, spokesperson of the moderate Hurriyat Conference.

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"Zardari or any other person has to bear in mind that Kashmir poses a potential threat to nuclear peace in the entire South Asian region. The region's survival is linked to the resolution of the long standing dispute," he said.

Zardari, whose party is set to lead the country's next government, had said the Kashmir issue should be set aside to focus on other aspects for improving relations with India.

"The idea is that we feel for Kashmir, the PPP has always felt for Kashmir. We have a strong Kashmir policy. We have always had one," he had said.

"But having said that, we don't want to be hostage to that situation. That is a situation we can agree to disagree (on). Countries do, we have positions, you have positions. We can agree to disagree on everything," Zardari said in a TV interview.

Reacting sharply to Zardari's statement, pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik said: "Nobody will be allowed to overlook the sacrifices of Kashmiris. We are not against friendship between the two countries. But they cannot do so by suppressing the Kashmir dispute. It has to be resolved."

President Kashmir Bar Association Nazir Ahmed Ronga angered by Zardari's statement said: "The statement shows the political immaturity of the PPP chief. It is an attempt to appease India and humiliate Kashmiris.”

"Let us wait till the new government takes over in Pakistan. It would be a coalition and let us first see what the official stand of the new government would be once it is formed," Shabir Ahmed Shah, chairman of the democratic freedom party, said.