Kashmir is the core issue -- Qazi

Kashmir is the core issue -- Qazi
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

CALCUTTA, JULY 2: Pakistan High Comissioner to India Ashaf Jehangir Qazi said on Saturday night that Kashmir was the ``core issue'' between India and Pakistan, ``but on this issue we find it so difficult to even find common ground on which to engage with each other''.

Speaking at a seminar `Beyond Kargil - Uneasy Neighbours in the new millemium?' Qazi said there was a perception in Pakistan, ``that in Kashmir there is a situation which is unjust, which is not in accordance with what the (Kashmiri) people want.''

The Kashmiri people, he said, if they had been able to exercise ``their free choice in 1947 or in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution would probably have come to Pakistan''.

Admitting, however, ``Maybe we are wrong in that perception,'' Qazi said, ``but that perception is very deep there ... until and unless there is a method of ascertaining those wishes of the Kashmir people or moving towards a settlement acceptable to them and of course acceptable to India and Pakistan, we will always have this problem'', which will come between New Delhi and Islamabad.

He said a way must be found for the two neighbours to engage with each other. ``We must find a way of engaging with each other ... initiating a peace process in which we might maintain our initial positions, but always keeping in mind what the people of Kashmir want.''

If that was impossible to do, the Pakistan High Commissioner said, then it might create problems. ``Looking beyond Kargil means looking beyond mutual recriminations that we often indulge in.''