NEW DELHI – Former Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, who recently led a group of concerned citizens to Kashmir, was hopeful of resumption of a formal dialogue between Kashmir and New Delhi soon and has sought an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deliberate on the issue.
According to Indian media, the senior BJP leader claimed that he had meetings with several senior functionaries in the NDA government and is doing ‘front groundwork’ to resume a formal dialogue process soon. Even though Sinha was tight-lipped about the meetings, sources said he has met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and discussed his visit to Kashmir.
Sinha believes in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s doctrine of ‘Insaniyat, Jhamooriyat and Kashmiriyat’ on Kashmir and is advocating and lobbying for the immediate resumption of ‘unconditional’ dialogue process with all stakeholders in J&K, including Hurriyat. And for Pakistan to make the ‘triangular talks’ possible at a later stage, Sinha said they have to abide by the commitment of not “exporting violence and terror.”
“I had many formal meetings on Kashmir with people in the government, but I don’t want to talk about it at this point of time. I will leave it undefined. I would not be striving if I was not hopeful. I don’t give up easily,” Sinha told ET at his Noida residence. “Dialogue process is something which is straight out of Agenda of Alliance (coalition document of BJP and PDP) and we are merely telling the new government their own truth.” -Online
