Geelani urges UN chief to intervene on K-issue

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 17

Separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani on Sunday sought the intervention of the United Nations (UN) for “peaceful settlement” of the Kashmir issue and also demanded setting up of a war crimes tribunal to identify and penalise the “culprits of human rights abuses.”

In a letter to the UN Secretary-General, Geelani described Kashmir as a “long-pending issue waiting for the final dispensation in accordance with the agreed UN resolutions.”

“The people of Kashmir demand the UN intervention for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue, lingering for the past seven decades before the UN,” Geelani said in the letter.

Geelani, who along with two other separatists is part of the joint resistance leadership, has been oscillating in his demand regarding the settlement of the Kashmir issue, frequently shuttling between negotiations and the non-negotiable demand for implementation of the decades-old UN resolutions. He, along with Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has in recent months sought dialogue as the path to solving the Kashmir issue and has minimised references for the plebiscite, which has been his traditional position. Earlier this week, the three separatists in their joint statement had said they consider “sincere, meaningful and result-oriented dialogue process” as a “means of conflict resolution.”

In his letter to the UN, Geelani, however, seemed to have hardened his stand as he demanded the world body to appoint a war crimes tribunal for Jammu and Kashmir to identify and penalise the “culprits of human rights abuses.”