Joint Resistance leadership rejects appointment of interlocutor

Srinagar, Oct 31 (Only Kashmir): Breaking the silence over the appointment of Kashmir interlocutor by Government of India Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) on Tuesday termed the appointment “nothing more than a tactic” after its “failure” of “military repression”.

In a statement, JRL comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said that the “appointment of Mr. Dineshwar Sharma by Govt of India as its interlocutor for J&K is nothing more than a tactic to buy time adopted under international pressures and regional compulsions and due to the abysmal failure of the state policy of military repression upon the people of Kashmir.”
“While in principle Pro-Freedom leadership has always advocated and supported sincere and productive dialogue as a means of conflict resolution over Jammu and Kashmir, what it inherently entails from all participants to dialogue is the basic acknowledgment that there is a dispute that has to be resolved. But Govt of India continuously refuses to accept this basic premise and the reality on the ground,” they said.
Reacting on former Home Minister P Chidambaram’s remark, JRL asked how could the GoI “address or engage with the Kashmiri people’s political will and aspiration of self-determination for which people have been relentlessly struggling and sacrificing for the past 70 years” when it even rejected the “demand of its co political party for restoration of autonomy guaranteed by its own constitution”.

JRL said that Sharma’s recent comment that he will come to Kashmir to dissuade the youth from pursuing their legitimate political aspirations so that Kashmir does not become Syria is misleading.
“To compare the internationally recognized 70-year-old political and humanitarian issue of Kashmir to that of the sectarian war and power struggle in Syria is deception and propaganda as there is no correlation between the two situations,” they said.
“JRL further said that Mr Sharma’s assertion that he is coming to the valley with the directive from Government of India to “restore peace” rather than addressing the dispute or its resolution in keeping with the overwhelming majority sentiment of people of J&K limits the scope of any engagement with him and makes it an exercise in futility.”

“Unless the Kashmir dispute is understood and addressed in its historical context and in the background of international commitments made over over it, lasting peace can neither be achieved in J&K nor in the sub continent. While the repressive state militaristic approach continues in dealing with Kashmir, to talk of peace and dialogue is also a ploy by the GOI to strike a hard bargain which people of Kashmir and leadership will never succumb to.”
JRL said that for any Kashmiri to be part of this “futile exercise” will only undermine “our internationally acknowledged legitimate and just struggle, nourished by the blood of our martyrs and great sacrifices and hardships rendered daily by the masses.”