PM intends to talk to all Kashmir stakeholders: Mehbooba

New Delhi, April 24: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said Prime Minister rendra Modi intended to hold talks in a “conducive atmosphere” with all stakeholders to bring order to the troubled state as she invoked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s policy, saying “talks” were the only way to “move forward”.

Mehbooba Mufti met Modi here to review the worsening security situation as speculations gained momentum about the possibility of Governor’s Rule in the state amid allegations that the PDP-BJP coalition government has failed to control law and order in the Kashmir Valley. “We had talks during Vajpayee regime. We need to move forward from where Atalji had left. Till then there is no chance of improvement in the situation,” Mufti said responding to reporters over possibility of talks with Hurriyat leaders. “We need a dialogue. We can’t be confronting our own people for too long. We cannot hold talks when from one side stones are being thrown and bullets are fired from the other,” she added. The Chief Minister added that Modi has vowed to work on the lines of Vajpayee, whose policy was of reconciliation and not of confrontation.

“Modiji has an intention of holding talks but before that a conducive atmosphere needs to be created,” she told reporters after the meeting the Prime Minister at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence. “Everything is possible if atmosphere is conducive, and there is no way forward without talks,” she said.

On possibility of Governer’s rule in the state, Mufti said: “That is for the central government to decide.” She dubbed the recent rift in alliance as “bad”, and said this should not have happened. “The PDP stood by its ‘dharma’ but it’s an interl matter and we will resolve it through talks,” she said. Mufti said her father, the late Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed “had given a road map” for lasting peace in the state. Mufti said she stressed on the Prime Minister to compensate people of the state for the losses they have suffered due to the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan.  She said she was confident of finding a solution to the festering trouble in the Kashmir Valley. “We have a Unified Command meeting tomorrow (Tuesday). There are two-three kinds of people who are involved in stone pelting. Some are disillusioned and some are incited,” the Chief Minister said when asked about how she would control the use of the social media that are inciting youths to pelt stones. (IANS)