Kashmir interlocutors submit initial assessment report to Chidambaram

NEW DELHI - The three-member panels of interlocutors, appointed by the Central Government, have submitted their first report to Home Minister P. Chidambaram here today.

They have given a list of recommendations to government on Kashmir which they said can’t be made public.

They also maintained that they would continue making regular trips to Kashmir to keep the dialogue going.

“We handed over the report of our first visit to Jammu and Kashmir to the Home Minister. It gives our preliminary assessment of the situation, as we perceived it. We have also given a series of recommendations and suggestions to address the kind of problems that are faced in different regions of the state, and by different sections of the population in the state,” Dileep Padgaonkar told reporters.

“The interlocutors’ panel would be visiting the Jammu and Kashmir again within the next 10 days, he added.

On Monday, Chidambaram cautioned the interlocutors to stick to their brief of seeking various shades of opinion and not indulge shades in “Cricket Commentary.”

“I think media should not ask and interlocutors should not give a ball0by-ball commentary about their dialogue. This is interlocution. This is not a cricket match,” Chidambaram said, and added that they should refrain from giving “ball-by-ball” commentary about the progress being made in the dialogue.

He also said that the interlocutors have been able to change “the discourse” in the state, and added, that now there is a sense of expectation that a political solution could emerge through the dialogue process(ANI)