‘Why talk to India if it doesn’t consider Kashmir disputed’

ISLAMABAD - Expressing wonder at the “fixation” of Pakistani leaders on a dialogue with “arch-enemy” India, an editorial in a Pakistani Urdu paper Saturday said there was no sense in talking if India did not consider Kashmir a “disputed area”.

Instead of trying to push for the resumption of the Composite Dialogue, it would be much better to support the ongoing struggle of the “oppressed” Kashmiri people, an editorial in Nawa-i-Waqt said.

It also said the current time was best to wrest control of Kashmir by force as “no other options would work with India” and the “opportunity should not be wasted”. It noted that “even the Indian Army chief had admitted that force had little hope of holding Kashmir”.

“If need be, we can use our nuclear capability to deter the cowardly Indians,” the editorial titled “Laaton ka bhoot baaton se kaise manega? (What effect will words have on someone used to blows)”.

Citing Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s press conference Friday where he spoke about his talks with his Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna in Islamabad Thursday, the editorial said if Qureshi really felt that Krishna had a “limited mandate” for talks and was only harping on the issue of terrorism and the 26/11 Mumbai attack, “then what were the issues that kept them talking for more than six hours”.

The editorial termed an “insult” Krishna’s insistence, in the joint press conference with Qureshi, that Kashmir was “an inalienable part of India, it had a lawfully elected government under the Indian constitution, and that Pakistan was infiltrating terrorists across the Line of Control since the past two years to disturb law and order”.

It castigated Qureshi, terming as “eminently regrettable” his lack of response when Krishna made “such claims on Pakistan soil”.

The editorial said there was no sense in talking to India when it “refused to implement the UN resolutions on Kashmir or release Pakistan’s share of river water”.

It accused India of “harbouring aggressive designs on Pakistan” and said “it had never come to terms with Pakistan’s existence and always remained engrossed in and never giving up any effort to do it harm”.

“When it engages in discussions with us, India wants Pakistan to give up its support to the Kashmiri people, under the pretext of trade, flood our markets with Indian goods and turn us into a market for Bollywood films,” it said, adding India always wanted Pakistan to be weak so that it could, with America’s blessing, take over the country to achieve its “dream of Akhand Bharat”.

The editorial claimed that Pakistan should refrain from returning to the days of “Commando General Pervez Musharraf” when the government was almost on the verge of “handing Kashmir over to India on a plate” only to earn the goodwill of the United States.