Need to insulate Indo-Pak dialogue process: Omar Abdullah

Srinagar, Dec 14: Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday, Dec 14 warned that attempts would be made to derail the dialogue process between India and Pakistan and said there was a need to thwart any such challenges by "insulating" the talks.

He also asserted that Jammu and Kashmir was a party to the talks and urged the Narendra Modi government to start a dialogue with the state "the way it has started with Pakistan".

"What we will have to do most is to insulate this dialogue because many attempts will be made to derail this process. Many attempts will be made to make this dialogue unsuccessful. Our endeavour should be to make all such attempts unsuccessful," Abdullah told reporters here.

The National Conference (NC) working president was talking to reporters after inaugurating the renovated headquarters of the party which was damaged during the floods last year and in a fire incident.

Abdullah said it did not matter as to where the talks took place but "at least the process has been restarted".

"It is good that talks have restarted. I have no objection that we had to talk in a third country. It's okay that we held talks in Bangkok and not in Delhi or Islamabad. At least the process of dialogue has been started," he said.

"Our Foreign Minister visited Islamabad and talks were restarted there. There was an announcement of holding a comprehensive dialogue. Now, we will wait for the shaping up of this comprehensive dialogue," he added.

The former chief minister said Jammu and Kashmir is a party to talks even if India and Pakistan would not make it a party on their own. "We are already a party.

We are a party to this issue since this issue is there...We want dialogue," he said. He said the Kashmir issue could be resolved only when there are talks on its internal and external dimensions. "

I will not get into whether this has to be a tripartite or bipartite dialogue. There are two parts of Jammu and Kashmir issue – one is internal between New Delhi and the state and the other external between New Delhi and Islamabad.

This issue can be resolved only when there are talks on both the tracks. "Right now the dialogue is on a single track and the talks have been started between New Delhi and Islamabad, but the talks between New Delhi and the state are also important. We are not seeing any development on that," he said.

Abdullah said "we will request and will be hopeful of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi's government to have talks with Jammu and Kashmir the way the government has started talks with Pakistan".

PTI