Youths' sacrifices forced revival of dialogue on Kashmir, says Mufti Sayeed

The People's Democratic Party patron, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, said that it was because of the sacrifices of youth and peaceful assertion of their rights that New Delhi and Islamabad had felt inspired to revive the stalled dialogue on Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service report on Friday, Sayeed cautioned against mistaking the yearning for peace in the territory as a compromise on the democratic right of people to demand a lasting resolution of the Kashmir dispute.
He said, "If there is a shift in the stances on Kashmir that led to resumption of dialogue it was because of the sacrifices constantly offered by youth and especially those during last year's agitation. It has convinced many policy planners of the futility of trying to push the problem under carpet in the hope of it vanishing without resolving it."
He welcomed the resumption of talks on Kashmir and other issues between India and Pakistan and said that this, however, needed to be taken to logical conclusion through solid action on actual resolution. "Unless that is done, peace in Kashmir will remain fragile and the surface calm would only be deceptive and vulnerable to breach," he said.
Referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent remarks on Kashmir situation, the Mufti said that the government of India must look beyond seasonal management of Kashmir and introduce wide-ranging action on the internal dimension of the problem. About the continued imprisonment of political leaders and youth, he said that peace could not be enforced through denial of liberties. He said that the drama around the conditional release and reported re-arrest of Qazi Yasir of Islamabad was symbolic of the attitude and arrogance of the government. He said that the authorities were not allowing prisoners even to see their loved ones on deathbed.