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India not interested in meaningful talks on Kashmir: Sattar

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar has said negotiations between Pakistan and India in the past 28 years were an exercise in futility as latter refused to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue on the core issue of Kashmir.

He was talking to a group of Kashmiri leaders, journalists and writers who called on the minister at the foreign office here on Thursday.

The Kashmiris are currently on a visit to Pakistan to participate in the functions and seminars on Kashmir Solidarity Day being observed on February 5.

The minister emphasising that the focus should be on the right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination which was promised to them by Pakistan, India and the world community.

He said the Indian insistence on bilateral settlement betrays a desire to leverage power disparity for imposition of its own preferences.

The two instances in which Pakistan and India had resolved their differences were through international arbitration, he added.

The minister stated that according to independent sources, more than 65,000 Kashmiris have been killed as a result of Indian atrocities.

He was of the view that it is simply not possible that several million people could be subdued forever and the time will come when India would have to yield to the wishes of the people of Kashmir. APP