Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ruled out on Wednesday redrawing India's borders with Pakistan as a solution to their dispute over Kashmir. President Pervez Musharraf suggested last month that parts of Azad and occupied Kashmir be demilitarised, be placed under United Nations mandate or under joint control. "I have made it clear to President Musharraf that any redrawing of the international border is not acceptable to us. Any proposal which smacks of further division is not going to be acceptable to us," Singh told a press conference here.
"I am not pessimistic and I am hopeful enough," said Singh, on his first visit to occupied Kashmir since taking office in May.
"Who could have imagined 20 years ago that the Berlin wall would melt? These things have happened.
"Our duty is to make a sincere effort to resolve all issues through purposeful negotiations," he said, referring to dialogue which began this year between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.
"I don't think the process of dialogue has got delayed," he said. "We have in this short period taken vital decisions. One of the decisions is that we are willing to talk to anybody in (occupied) Kashmir who has a point of view."
Singh, however, hit out at Kashmiri leaders for setting what he said were preconditions for resuming dialogue with New Delhi.
A moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference has demanded that its leaders be allowed to visit Pakistan and hold talks with various leaders there before they continue the dialogue.
The faction, headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, held two rounds of talks this year with officials of the previous Hindu nationalist government which was defeated by Singh's Congress-led alliance in April-May parliamentary elections.
"They cannot put any precondition that they will not talk to us unless we allow them to go to Pakistan. We are not putting any preconditions (to talks)," Singh said in response to a question.
Farooq told AFP in an interview that they hoped during their visit to see political leaders in Azad Kashmir, Pakistani government officials as well as leaders of Mujahideen groups.
"If we are to progress on the path of peace and reconciliation, it is important that those people holding the guns should be taken into confidence," he said.
In the meantime, Indian occupation troops killed two heavily armed suspected freedom fighters in the heart of Kashmir's biggest city on Wednesday, and said the gunmen planned to attack a meeting nearby which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed just hours later.
Just hours before Indian prime minister landed in occupied Srinagar, occupation soldiers fought a gun battle with two suspected freedom fighters who had been holed up since late Tuesday in a run-down building overlooking the stadium.
Television footage showed dramatic pictures of flak-jacketed occupation troops firing from behind armoured vehicles and running forward to get to better firing positions.
The suspected freedom fighters, equipped with AK-47 assault rifles, pistols and grenades, later climbed a nearby hill and took cover in a semi-constructed building from where they fired intermittently.
Later, Indian occupation soldiers surrounded the building and shot the men dead. The occupation troops then clambered onto the building looking for booby traps and scoured the hillside to ensure that there was no more hiding nearby.
"We consider it as a major success because we were able to detect them and eliminate them before the PM's programme," Police Inspector General Ranjit Singh said. "If not, they could have caused major havoc."
Two occupation soldiers and a civilian were wounded.
Shops remained closed in occupied Srinagar and streets wear a deserted look in response to a general strike called by a Kashmiri group which is demanding Manmohan Singh to apologise for what it says were atrocities by Indian occupation troops against Kashmiris.
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