PDP asks interlocutors to involve separatists in talks

"Separatists are important stakeholders in the process. So their engagement in the dialogue process is a must to take the process to its logical end," PDP president Mehbooba Mufti told three-member panel of interlocutors, who called on her at her residence.

Underlining the need to involve all stakeholders in the process of solving Kashmir issue, Mehbooba said separatists must be engaged in the dialogue process and their concerns should be addressed.

With the interlocutors preparing their report, she cautioned that any unilateral roadmap would fail to reach a lasting resolution of the problem. "Keeping in view the complexity and diversity of this state, there is need to involve all sections, regions and sub-regions in the process of dialogue to arrive at an acceptable and workable solution," the PDP president said.

Putting emphasis on the need for involving Pakistan in the dialogue process, she said, "Involvement of Pakistan in the talks is a must because without taking the neighboring country on board, dialogue process would be meaningless."

Mehbooba said unilateral or bilateral decisions taken by the previous regimes, from time to time, had proved counter-productive, so there is need to take comprehensive and holistic view of the whole issue so as to solve this problem once for all.

She demanded that "sense of siege that gripped Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of partition should be removed to help this region to regain its past premier position and to harness its inherent potential as a business centre as it was before partition."

She claimed that the socio-economic growth of the state has been restricted after the partition due to plugging of all routes connecting J&K with rest of the world. "There is need to open all traditional routes through Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh to make it a vibrant economy. We have to rediscover and revive our cultural and logistical channels of growth that have influenced all the three regions of the state for centuries," she said.

Mehbooba said the natural resources of the state and their present exploitation needed to be revisited. She demanded renegotiation of "biased agreements" with the various agencies and the State should be allowed to exploit its hydroelectric potential to transfer this region into a greatest economy of the sub-continent.

"This could open up new areas of hope and opportunity to youth of the state who are at present facing worst unemployment crisis," she said.