Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said it was impossible for India to normalise its relations with Pakistan until the neighbouring country stops infiltration and ceasefire violations.
He also said that calling the operation against holed up militants in Keran sector as “second Kargil” was media hype.
“At least, it is through talks that Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) talked to (Pakistan Prime Minister) Nawaz Sharif in clear terms in New York and he said the situation should not remain as such and infiltration and ceasefire violations should stop.
“They reintroduced a mechanism for it — that the DGMOs of both the nations would talk to each other — perhaps we will benefit from that,” Mr. Abdullah told reporters here after teeing-off the 17th All India Police Golf Tournament at Royal Springs Golf Course.
The Chief Minister said, “However, thinking that the relations will get normalised in such a situation, then that is impossible. We will surely talk, but the results that we want out of that dialogue; we cannot achieve those till such things (infiltration and ceasefire violations) are not stopped.”
Advocating dialogue for solving issues even as there has been a spurt in ceasefire violations and infiltration attempts from across the Line of Control (LoC), Mr. Abdullah said both the countries should continue to hold talks as such attempts continued even when the two countries were not talking to each other.
“When there were no talks, was the infiltration not happening? It was going on continuously even then,” he said.
The Chief Minister said as the winter approaches, the infiltration attempts increase and efforts are made to push in as many of them from across the LoC.
Mr. Abdullah said, “The attempts of infiltration take place continuously, especially in this season (summer). Winter is approaching and after snowfall, the infiltration gets not just difficult but impossible. They try to send as many people they could before the winter.”
He said first they used to send the infiltrators in groups of five to six, but now they find it difficult to cross and so they send 30-40 persons in groups because even if five out of the 40 cross tLoC, they think of it as a success. This is what they try to do and it is nothing new, he said.
Mr. Abdullah declined to comment on the Keran operation, which ended yesterday after 15 days.
“It is a question for the Army. The operation was conducted by the Army and there was no involvement of either the police or the civil administration. If you (media) have any questions, you will have to ask them to the Army, I do not have answers to such questions,” he said.
He also said that calling the operation “second Kargil” was media hype.
“It is you (media) who gave it the hype. Did you hear the Army saying that it was a second Kargil? Did you hear the civil administration or Government of India saying it was a second Kargil? The name of second Kargil was given by you people. You create the hype and how can you blame the Army for that,” he said.
