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Josy Joseph in New Delhi
No date has been fixed yet for the next meeting between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah told a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday.
The United Nations General Assembly session in New York in September is just one of the possible venues for them to meet, he said. "The only certainty is that Vajpayee has accepted an invitation to visit Pakistan."
Omar Abdullah also signalled the readiness of his party, the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, to negotiate on its demand for a return to the pre-1953 status of his home state.
The party, he said, is "not under the illusion that they [the Centre] will accept the pre-'53 status. It is the stated bargaining position of the NC."
Referring to Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani's recent statement about giving special powers to the state government, Abdullah said it has to be seen "how it fits in with the autonomy resolution".
"The National Conference is asking for something that you can give, not asking for independence or merger with Pakistan," he remarked.
Abdullah said India would go ahead and implement the unilateral confidence-building measures it had announced in the run-up to the Agra summit in July "because we disagree with Pakistan's contention that Kashmir is the focal issue. There are numerous other areas where we need to talk."
He said the summit had helped the two leaders to get to know each other and develop a rapport for the future. "Dialogue will continue," he iterated, "given the stated position of both sides that violence is no answer." But cross-border terrorism must end, he added.
"While we talk to Pakistan, we must continue to deal with terrorism," Abdullah asserted. There will always be a "military aspect" to a solution to the Kashmir problem. As long as militants continue to infiltrate, "we have to match them militarily".
"But we have never contemplated a totally military solution," he added. There must be simultaneous economic and political steps to improve the lives of the Kashmiri people.
On the killing of minorities in the state, the minister said it was nothing new. "If you kill five or six Muslims in a day, it won't get you as much attention as you get if you kill some members of the minority community," he remarked.
The "worrying aspect" of the recent killings, he said, was the militancy moving into the heart of Jammu.
He rubbished allegations that the state assembly election, due later next year, would not be free and fair. Such allegations, he said, are mere "posturing". What is "worrying is the use of religious institutions to thwart democratic efforts". He said the Hurriyat Conference's efforts "to deny people their right [to vote] by using militants" was also condemnable.
On the question of Pakistan characterising the militancy in Kashmir as an Islamic jihad, the minister said if that were so, many more Muslims would have been fighting in the valley. "India has 120 million Muslims," he pointed out. "The umbrella of jihad is being used to legitimise cross-border terrorism."
He admitted that there are "vested interests on all sides" in Kashmir which want militancy to continue. One way out, he suggested, would be for the state government "to improve governance and target corruption, target the channels of funds coming into the state".
"Where does the Hurriyat get all its money from? It is definitely not coming from the people of Kashmir alone," the minister remarked.
Referring to the objections filed by India with Nepal over their bilateral trade agreement, Abdullah, who used to be minister of state for commerce before being shifted to external affairs, said some sections of industry in India were suffering on account of the privileges extended to their Nepalese counterparts.
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