PDP patron told the gathering, on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the launch of historic karvan e amn between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, that the bus service between the two halves of the state was started after 58 years by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi from Srinagar on 7th April 2005 to facilitate the coming together of divided families, with a vision to extend it into regular travel and travel facility to break the decades long siege around the state.
Mufti said it was sad that the governments of
Referring to the situation that had prevailed in the state when the present peace process was launched by Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mufti said it had proved to be the most sustainable effort in the unhappy relationship between
Mufti said lifting the siege around the three regions of the state is an important element in making the resolution process meaningful. He said the trade across LOC is not just about exchanging ‘potatoes for pulses’ but it has an important historic, cultural and economic perspective. “PDP wants opening up of all traditional routes through Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh and Kargil regions and lifting curbs on travel and trade to create an Economic Free Zone (EFC) across the state that with its tremendous natural resources could become one of the most affluent regions of the country” he maintained. He said major hurdles had been crossed in this process by conceding important principles like travel on permits instead of passport and visa and trade without custom duties and it needed only fine tuning now in terms of the decisions taken by foreign ministers last year.
Mufti said it was good that even those who had been deriding our campaign for opening of roads across LOC were now speaking for the process “though it is unfortunate that it was being compared with the trade across Wagah or
Former Minister and general secretary of PDP Mohammad Dilawar Mir, Thakur Balbir Singh general secretary and former Minister and MLA Bijbehara Abdul Rehman Veeri also addressed the gathering.
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