A leading Kashmiri separatist yesterday welcomed comments by India's home minister that New Delhi would allow separatists to visit Pakistan, saying it would "push the peace process forward."
"I welcome the statement," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told reporters in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. Home Minister Shivraj Patil said at the start of a three-day tour of the troubled region on Saturday that there were no restrictions on anyone travelling to Pakistan.
"If they [separatists] inquire ... through proper methods, we will look into it. There should not be any problem," he said in a departure from previous positions where pleas by separatists for permission to visit Pakistan have been ignored.
"If New Delhi allows us to visit Pakistan ahead of the third round of talks, it will push the peace process forward," said Farooq.
His moderate faction of the region's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, held two rounds of talks with former Indian deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani earlier this year. Farooq, however, has ruled out talks with India's left-backed Congress government which was elected in May, until separatists are allowed to visit Pakistan.
"We have held two rounds of talks with New Delhi. Now there is a need to talk to the Pakistanis as they are also a party to the dispute," said Farooq, who is also a Muslim cleric.
Farooq and other moderates want to discuss the "road map" they have prepared for solving the Kashmir tangle with Pakistani leaders and Kashmiri militant leaders based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Only Farooq has a passport; other separatists have either been denied travel documents or have had them impounded by the Indian authorities.
They are now likely to apply for fresh documents, a separatist source said. Patil was expected yesterday to visit the Line of Control -- the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
The Indian army has almost completed fencing a 460km stretch of the Line of Control to prevent the infiltration of Islamic militants from across the Pakistani side of the divide.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS