Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 22: Reiterating the party’s resolve of making Jammu & Kashmir an epicenter of South Asian Co-operation, PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti, today called upon India and Pakistan to end their differences for the lasting peace in the region.
Addressing a well-attended youth convention in Ganderbal, Mehbooba said resolution of J&K issue is a must to realize peace and development on the ground and the PDP, with the support of people, has a pivotal role to take the State out of the present quagmire.
She said Kashmir has been a challenge for all the Prime Ministers of India since 1947, and there is need for serious efforts to address the prevailing alienation among the people of Kashmir. “I hope Prime Minister, Narendra Modi will restart the stalled process of dialogue and reconciliation that was initiated at the level of the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani under the Vajpayee led Government,” she said.
Mehbooba said there was a need for a sustained dialogue between different shades of public opinion in J&K and New Delhi and between New Delhi and Islamabad for a dignified solution of Kashmir issue. She said that SAARC cooperation should begin from Jammu and Kashmir and the State should become a model of the economic integration among all these neighboring countries. Jammu and Kashmir can become a model for a free economic zone wherein all the neighboring countries invest and the State could reap the economic dividends, which would result in creating livelihood on a mass scale. “There is no better place than Kashmir to start the Handicrafts University proposed by the SAARC countries, which has historically been the hub of handicrafts and traditional arts in the entire world” Mehbooba stressed.
The PDP president said that though Kashmir issue needs an apolitical solution but bad governance, corruption and unemployment has further complicated the issue thus creating enormous instability and insecurity among the people.
Mehbooba said that the present Parliament results are an indication that the people want a change and they are looking towards PDP as better alternative to address the governance deficit and also create reconciliatory atmosphere on the ground for peace process to move forward.
Senior party leader, Qazi Mohammad Afzal, Waheed-Ur-Rehman Parra, Bashir Ahmad, Ghulam Rasool Shaheen and Abdul Wahid were present on this occasion.
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