Pak too must quit Kashmir, says Hurriyat

The All-Party Kashmir Hurriyat Conference has asked Pakistan also to vacate the part of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by it and called for peaceful negotiations to solve the Kashmir problem. Earlier it had demanded that India vacate the valley and that the people be given the right to self-determination.

The APKHC leadership, including chairman Omar Farooq, Abdul Ghani Lone, Ali Shah Geelani and Yaseen Malik, told a press conference that they wanted the Kashmir problem to be solved ''peacefully and amicably between India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir." Any solution agreed upon would be acceptable to them, the Hurriyat leaders said.

They said the Hurriyat wanted self-determination for the people of the entire Jammu and Kashmir state, including those of the Kashmir valley, the Hindus of Jammu and the Buddhists of Ladakh. Asked if the APKHC, a conglomeration of 25 organisations, wanted independence for people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and also the people of that part of Gilgit which had been ceded by Pakistan illegally to China, the Hurriyat leaders clarified that their demand covered the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir that existed before August 15, 1947.

Meanwhile, in Bombay, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, said that the issue of granting autonomy to the state would be resolved through consensus among all political parties. He said the Dr Karan Singh commission set up to study the matter would be submitting its recommendations to the state government by May end.