SRINAGAR, Feb 8 (1996) – Four Kashmiri Moslem separatist leaders said Thursday that they were willing to hold talks with the Indian government if New Delhi acknowledged the disputed status of the Himalayan state.
“The time has come to seek an end to the Kashmir dispute because people are suffering,” Babar Badr, chief of the Moslem Jaanbaaz Force, told reporters in this Kashmir summer capital.
“India should first recognise the Kashmir problem and then we will have no problems talking to India,” he said at a news conference which was also addressed by former leaders of the Hizbul Mujahideen and Moslem Mujahideen separatist groups.
Bilal Lodhi, a former chief of the Al-Barq group, said India had “to play a mojor role (with Pakistan) in finding a solution to the Kashmir problem as it is a basic party to the dispute.”
The leaders also slammed the All Party Freedom Conference — a forum of some 30 Moslem rebel and political organisations — saying its leaders had failed to achieve results and were only interested in self-aggrandisement.
“We have no faith in a leadership which purchases offices in New Delhi for huge sums while hundreds of Kashmiris are perishing,” Lodhi said. The Conference recently set up a liasion office in the Indian capital.
More than 12,000 people have died in militancy-linked violence in Kashmir since 1989. India, which occupies the southern two-thirds of the state, accuses Pakistan of fomenting insurgency in the only Indian province with a Moslem majority.
Islamabad denies the charge but extends moral and diplomatic support to what it terms a legitimate expression for self-rule. The two neighbours have fought two wars over the Himalayan state.
