"APHC calls upon New Delhi to announce and initiate an internal ceasefire in the state and promised Hurriyat would later impress the terrorist leadership to reciprocate," Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told reporters here after meeting a delegation of Kashmir traders, migrants and senior citizens.
"New Delhi, being the bigger party in the Kashmir problem, should initiate the ceasefire," he said adding that Hurriyat would compliment this move by the Centre.
The Mirwaiz, who had come here yesterday and met seven delegations so far from Rajouri and Poonch also, said that violence is detrimental to peace. Guns were no solution to the Kashmir dispute. Gun culture should end now and only dialogue could fetch the resolution of the Kashmir issue.
"The government of India should come up with its roadmap to Kashmir. We would welcome its proposals on the resolution of the long-standing dispute of Kashmir," the Hurriyat chief said.
"I have thoroughly studied the Irish Peace Process model during my visit to Ireland. New Delhi should exhibit a political will like the United Kingdom in resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland," he said.
He said that they did not take part in the round table conference on Kashmir convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and working groups set up on the issue as it was only Jammu and Kashmir centric and should have also included Pakistan occupied Kashmir and northern areas in its ambit.
"The need of hour is to institutionalise the dialogue process so that it doesn't derail in case of any eventuality," he said.
Commenting on the extremist Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani's call of strike on January 17 against the dialogue process between New Delhi and Islamabad and some separatist leaders, the Mirwaiz said, "Geelani Sahab is caught up in history. Post 9/11, the global order is changing and new structures are emerging."
On the role of United Nations for failing to resolve the Kashmir issue, Mirwaiz said, "UN has failed Iraq, Afghanistan as well as Kashmir."
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