ISLAMABAD (PTI): Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Nov.25 said the agreement with India to resume talks in January in Islamabad was an important step forward for the people of Kashmir.
But she rejected the so-called third option a separate Kashmiri state saying such schemes would lead to the “Balkanisation of the subcontinent.
Speaking to senior editors of Pakistani newspapers in Islamabad, Bhutto said “substantive talks” would be held on the Kashmir issue, which would be a completely separate agenda item at the talks. India and Pakistan had Wednesday announced that their foreign secretaries would meet in Islamabad from January 13 for talks on bilateral issues and “all aspects” of the Kashmir issue.
Asked what would be Pakistan’s response if the Kashmiris demanded independence (from both India and Pakistan), she shot back, “Why should they demand independence?”
The Pakistan premier asserted that there was no concept of “third option” in the 1947 independence act under which the states of undivided India joined either India or Pakistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 3, 1993
