Kashmiris must play their part in resolving the issue. Talking to journalists during his tour of some of the quake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir on Wednesday, US Ambassador Ryan C Crocker termed the Kashmir issue as a critical problem, adding that it cannot be solved unless the Kashmiris are part of the process of finding a solution.
Indeed, the long stated US position on the issue is that it should be resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people. The Ambassador's remarks, however, assume a special significance coming as they do at a time a positive forward movement in Kashmir is in evidence. As he noted, the opening of the Line of Control (LoC) at five points is a good sign as it has enabled the governments of Pakistan and India as well as Kashmiris from both sides of the divide to come together.
An example of how eager the Kashmiris are to come together was on ample display when the first point opened for the passage of relief goods. Gathering in a huge number, they tried to push their way across, compelling the security personnel to use force to turn them back from the LoC. The Kashmiris, it hardly needs saying, fervently desire to be a part of the resolution.
It may be recalled that an All Parties Hurriyat Conference delegation, led by Mirwaiz Omer Farooq, last June paid a visit to AJK and Pakistan. Upon return to Srinagar the Mirwaiz told journalists, "The biggest benefit from the trip is that Kashmiris are being accepted as a party to the dispute."
However, JKLF leader, Yasin Malik, who was also a member of the delegation, all through the tour kept expressing the apprehension that the two countries were ignoring the Kashmiris. He asserted that the Kashmiris being the primary party to the dispute must be included in the Pak-India dialogue on the issue. He repeated the demand during his recent visit to AJK and Pakistan in the aftermath of the October 8 earthquake.
So far as Pakistan is concerned, it has taken the initiative in showing the 'flexibility' that President Musharraf has been suggesting, asserting at the same time that any solution can become acceptable here if it is acceptable to the Kashmiri people.
The problem is on the side of India, which is yet to come to terms with the idea of involving the Kashmiri leadership in the negotiation process in a meaningful way. During his visit to Pakistan last June, BJP leader L.K. Advani had also said that any solution of the issue has to be acceptable to both India and Pakistan as well as all sections of the "diverse communities" living in Kashmir.
These remarks created the hope that finally even the hard-liners in India's ruling class had come around to embrace the idea of according importance to the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
That hope though, was soon dampened by a letter that a BJP leader and former prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to express his concern over "a disturbing turn of events." According to him, "the most disturbing turn" was the involvement of the Hurriyat in the peace process and a growing demand for trilateral talks and international guarantees for the settlement of the Kashmir issue.
As per its own public statements, the US has been playing the role of a facilitator, nudging both Pakistan and India towards the negotiation table to resolve all their outstanding disputes, at the core of which lies the Kashmir problem. In the meantime, India has been moving ever closer to the US as its new strategic partner in the region.
It was to protect that relationship that at the September IAEA meeting, which was aimed at curtailing Iran's nuclear ambitions, India, despite its strong interest in maintaining good relations with that country, had voted in favour of a US-EU resolution that recommended reporting Iran to the UNSC for punitive sanctions.
Indeed, at this point in time the US is uniquely placed to use its influence with New Delhi to push the on-going Pak-India peace process towards a Kashmir solution. And as the country's Ambassador to Pakistan rightly put it, the issue cannot be resolved unless the Kashmiris are a part of the process of finding a solution. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that Washington is actually working for it to happen.