Any group opposed to violence welcome for talks: Manmohan Sngh

Prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday asked Pakistan to deliver on its promise of not letting its soil to be used for terror against India, even as he expressed willingness to talk to “the groups who are opposed to violence and terrorism”.

Addressing the 5th convocation of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology on Monday, the prime minister said, “Good relations are necessary for peace, harmony, stability and development in our regions. The destinies of our people are linked to each other. Therefore both the countries should adopt effective ways of co-operation. A strong, stable and prosperous Pakistan is in the interest of our whole region.”
Singh expressed willingness to start the stalled dialogue process with separatists.

“We are ready to hold talks with the representatives of any group which shuns violence and terror. However, there are a handful of people who do not want any political process for empowering people to succeed. This is the reason why attempts to disturb the lives of the people in the valley still continue from across the Line of Control (LoC),” he said.

In a veiled reference to the recent fake encounters, Singh said he was aware of some complaints related to the human rights and said the government’s policy was to protect human rights while dealing with terrorism.

“Our security agencies are forced to act in the wake of such incidents (terror). During the process sometimes innocent civilians have to suffer, but whenever such incidents happen it becomes necessary to act against those responsible for them,” he said.

The prime minister stressed that the security forces in J&K have been asked to respect the rights of the civilians. “We will act to remove any deficiency in the implementation of these instructions,” he promised.

Singh also spoke about the concerns on people to people contact and cross LoC trade. “We have tried our best to promote movement of people and trade on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalkot roads. We now want to take similar steps for the Kargil-Skardu route. We have been consistently trying to increase trade and commerce between different parts of J&K. We want to look at all possibilities to strengthen links between people on both sides of LoC,” he said.

Singh said the government was implementing the recommendations of round table conferences in a step-wise manner. “In the three round table conferences, we took care to include as many civil society and political groups from the state as possible. The recommendations emerged out of the deliberations are being implemented in a step-wise manner,” he said.