J-K: Hurriyat asks India, Pak to show maturity

Expressing concern over border clashes, moderate Hurriyat on Thursday asked both India and Pakistan to exhibit maturity and stop situation from spiralling into a crisis.

Expressing concern over border clashes, moderate Hurriyat on Thursday asked both India and Pakistan to exhibit maturity and stop situation from spiralling into a crisis.

"Leadership of both the countries should exhibit political maturity and farsightedness by taking steps to prevent the delicate situation from turning out of hand," said a joint statement of Hurriyat constituents after a meeting chaired by its chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Srinagar.

"The participants stated that before the situation takes an ugly turn, leadership of both the countries should shed their confrontational approach and take serious initiatives to solve the issues between them," urged the separatist leaders in the statement.

Moderate Hurriyat's executive body held a meeting over escalation on borders in Jammu and Kashmir where both India and Pakistan exchanged firing for more than a week now.

"Talk of peace and prosperity in the region were meaningless without solving the Kashmir dispute on urgent basis according to the political aspirations of Kashmiris," they said.

The Hurriyat leaders, including Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat who raked controversy after meeting People's Democratic Party patron Mufti Muhammaf Sayeed, described the recently held polls as "sham".

"Significance and sensitivity of Kashmir issue cannot be diluted by taking support of sham elections, backdoor politics, or by clash of cultures and identity. Hence, the solution of Kashmir on urgent basis becomes inevitable to extricate more than a billion people inhabiting the sub-continent from insecurity and instability towards the path of progress and prosperity in the changing global scenario," they added.