‘DIALOGUE ONLY AFTER STONEPELTING ENDS IN KASHMIR’

NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah has ruled out dialogue on the Kashmir issue until stone-pelting ends, but insisted that the government will talk to everyone once violence ends.

Asked if the government will speak to the Hurriyat (separatists) too as was done by the previous NDA government, he said, “Once violence ends and an atmosphere of dialogue is created, we will talk to every one.” The Agenda of Alliance sealed by the BJP and the PDP before they formed the government in the state talks about holding dialogue with all internal stakeholders.

“We have said that we will start dialogue once stone- pelting stops. As long as there is stone-pelting, there cannot be dialogue. We cannot give them flower if they pelt stones.

They will have to understand it,” he said.

Asked if he was satisfied with the performance of the state government, in which the BJP is a junior partner to the PDP, he said it had done very good work on developing infrastructure and succeeded in bringing development to farflung areas which, he added, had been connected in a strategic way.

For the first time, he has said, Jammu and Ladakh, two other regions in the state besides Kashmir, believe that they have got “justice”.

He also played down the current cycle of violence in the valley, saying the region has seen such “hot situation” in stretches of six, eight or 12 months earlier as well, before security forces controlled it.

“You cannot assess the situation in Kashmir by picking one stretch of six months. You will have to see the entire period from 1989 to May 2017. There have been many stretches of six months, eight months or one year when the situation has been hot before our security forces controlled it,” he said.