News
Sunday, April 04, 2010
‘18th Amendment will help resolve Kashmir’* Former IHK CM says empowering PM will restore full democracy in Pakistan
NEW DELHI: Welcoming the tabling of the 18th Amendment Bill in the National Assembly, former Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed said that empowering the prime minister and other institutions would restore “full democracy” in Pakistan. He believes the move would help create an atmosphere conducive to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. In a statement issued in Srinagar, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) patron said the constitutional package introduced in parliament would strengthen democratic forces throughout South Asia.
Sayeed said the rare unanimity witnessed among Pakistan’s political parties in arriving at the reform proposals should be seen as a positive development in the growth of democracy. The former chief minister also hailed the country’s civil society in combatting issues related to democracy and fighting terrorism. However, he cautioned against pushing the Kashmir issue to the “backburner”.
“The strategy has not worked in the past and will not succeed in the future,” he said. Sayeed described the revival of the 2003 peace process as the only hope for the return of normalcy. Lamenting the lack of a follow-up to landmark measures like cross-LoC travel and trade, he said the return of democracy in Pakistan was a silver lining, and asked India to capitalise on it. “The atmosphere of reconciliation and constitutional reforms in Pakistan should make it easier, rather than difficult as some hawks in our country believe, to engage with the country as democracies have their own terms of decent and civilised engagement,” he said. iftikhar gilani
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk