Washington, July 25: Keeping its stand on the issue of Kashmir intact, Pakistan has contended that the attacks on civilians and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir is the result of a "freedom struggle" against "state terrorism".

Participating in a conference on Kashmir here yesterday, Pakistani ambassador to the United States Ashraf Jahangir Qazi said the people of Kashmir "have perforce to resort to a freedom struggle, including armed struggle" as their demands are not settled peacefully.
He said "the larger proportion of terror (in Jammu and Kashmir) is state terror."
The status quo, he said, is no solution and insisted that the "militant outfits engaged in Kashmir" sprang from the soil itself.
Indian ambassador to the United States Lalit Mansingh did not attend the conference which was organised by the association of humanitarian lawyers and the Kashmir American council headed by Ghulam Nabi Fai, an active lobbyist for Hurriyat.



Indian embassy sources told reporters that Mansingh did not accept the invitation, as the Pakistan ambassador did, because India "does not subscribe to the kind of set up. Knowing it has a motivated purpose behind it, we did not obviously want to give it any legitimacy which it does not deserve. The Pakistani hand behind this made us keep away".


Bureau Report