Pakistan can’t be faulted for Kashmir unrest: Omar Abdullah

Ex-CM says current situation sparked by India’s failure to address the issue

With tensions simmering between the two rival states, former chief minister for Indian Occupied Kashmir Omar Abdullah on Saturday said that the unrest in Kashmir cannot be blamed on Pakistan but was a result of mistakes made by New Delhi for not engaging with the people.

"Do not be under this false impression that the fire you see in Kashmir has been ignited by Pakistan. It is a result of our mistakes," Press Trust of India quoted Omar as saying at a National Conference in Baramulla.



"To blame Pakistan alone for the political situation or the current unrest in the valley is a distortion of the truth,” he said adding that the people of the Indian Occupied Kashmir had sentiments against the Indian government even when there was no external interference,.

These sentiments, he stated, were a result of the ‘historic blunders and broken promises by successive dispensations’ in New Delhi.

“This political sentiment forms the basis of the state's special status that has since been eroded by extra-constitutional machinations," Omar said.

The former chief minister stressed that the current situation was because of the incumbent Indian government’s refusal to even acknowledge that a problem existed in Kashmir.

The statement comes at a time when Pakistan’s Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz is in Amritsar for the Heart of Asia Conference.



Two days before the conference was due to start, Indian external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup categorically ruled out any possibility of talks between Indian officials and Sartaj on the sidelines of the conference.

Earlier, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit on Wednesday had  stated that Islamabad was ready for a bilateral dialogue with Delhi at the Heart of Asia summit.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2016.