Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday said Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India, yet a political crisis in the State required to be resolved with a political treatment.
Mr. Abdullah clarified that his recent suggestion to resolve the Kashmir issue on the pattern of the arrangement in Northern Ireland was a purely personal idea. There were a host of proposals from different quarters and his National Conference had already given its official road map (on greater autonomy as per the Delhi agreement of 1952), he said, speaking to the media after the opening of the Civil Secretariat and other government offices in the winter capital here.
Dialogue, Mr Abdullah emphasised, was the only way of resolving the Kashmir imbroglio. He said he was at a loss to understand why separatists were shy of holding talks with New Delhi particularly when many of them had condemned violence including the gun culture and stone pelting. Dialogue thereafter remained the only way out, he said.
Mr Abdullah said he had convinced the Centre of the need for initiating a dialogue but the separatists were not amenable to such a political process with New Delhi.
He urged Pakistan to respect the ceasefire of November 2003 and wanted the two countries to restore clam on the borders.
‘No Modi wave’
On the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee, Mr. Abdullah endorsed the importance of Narendra Modi’s anointment but asserted that there was no Modi wave in the country.