PUGWASH CONFERENCE: KASHMIRI CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISLAMABAD 004386

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/16/2016
TAGS: PREL PK IN PTER
SUBJECT: PUGWASH CONFERENCE: KASHMIRI CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES.

Classified By: Derived from DSCG 05-01, b and d


1. (C) Summary: A three-day gathering of Kashmiris,
Pakistanis and Indians in Islamabad highlighted the
continuing effort of President Musharraf to build support for
his peace proposals. The meeting featured a two-and-a-half
hour exchange with Musharraf on his ideas for
demilitarization, self-government and joint management.
Separately, Musharraf met with pro-Indian Kashmiri politician
(and member of Parliament) Omar Abdullah, who by all accounts
was favorably impressed with Musharraf's flexibility and
commitment to peace. On the negative side, the Kashmiris
fought bitterly among themselves, with some (including the
JKLF's Yasin Malik) stressing the need to include the
militants in any peace dialogue. End Summary.


2. (C) Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control (and
the diaspora),representing a range of political positions
gathered in Islamabad with Pakistani and Indian politicians
and academics for a March 10-12 conference that highlighted
the changing dynamics of the Kashmir issue and the deep
divisions among Kashmiri groups. The conference was
organized by Pugwash, an international organization based in
Washington, London, Geneva and Rome, that focuses on security
and conflict resolution. Kashmiri leaders included Omar
Abdullah (National Conference),Yasin Malik (JKLF),Sajjad
Ghani Lone (People's Conference),Mehbooba Mufti (Jammu and
Kashmir People's Democratic Party),Sardar Qayyum (Muslim
Conference) and Abdul Ghani Bhatt (Muslim Conference --
Indian Kashmir). The three days of meetings proceeded under
the rotating chairmanship of Pakistani General (ret.) Talaat
Masood (a respected policy analyst and Embassy contact),his
Indian counterpart and Pugwash Secretary General Paolo
Cotta-Ramusino. Two leaders who were notably absent were
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (APHC) and Syed Ali Geelani. The
Mirwaiz's public explanation for his absence was an injury to
his ankle, though our colleagues in the diplomatic community
suspect that having boycotted an earlier Indian roundtable,
the Mirwaiz felt he should boycott this event too.


3. (C) On the eve of the conference, PolCouns met with Yasin
Malik and several Pakistan-based JKLF leaders. Malik
downplayed the significance of the conference, predicting
that meetings on the margins would be more important than the
session itself. He repeatedly stressed the need to include
Kashmiri militant groups in the peace process, saying that he
had made the same point to Manmohan Singh. He said he had
told Singh that outside of Jammu, India and its supporters
(i.e., Omar Abdullah) had "zero support" in Kashmir, and that
for any peace initiative to succeed it would have to draw in
militants. He had made the same point directly to moderates
like Abdullah who, in his view, were in danger of being seen
as Indian appeasers and of losing support in Kashmir.


4. (C) President Musharraf spent two and half hours with the
group on the opening day, explaining his proposals for
demilitarization, self-governance and joint management of
Kashmir. The objective, he said was to find a solution that
would not involve redrawing borders or making the Line of
Control (LoC) permanent, but to instead make the LoC
irrelevant. He stressed that these were simply ideas, and
that Pakistan would welcome Indian input but that time was of
the essence. Leaders on both sides needed to seize the
"fleeting opportunity" for peace.


5. (C) Musharraf also held a separate 45-minute one-on-one
with Omar Abdullah, whose visit represented the first trip to
Pakistan in recent memory by a leading pro-Indian Kashmiri
leader. According to press reports (including The Hindu),
Abdullah emerged from the meeting impressed that "Musharraf
has shown greater flexibility than Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh." He remarked that Musharraf was "the best bet for
India to do business with," as he had "shifted from the
traditional maximalist position on Kashmir and shown
flexibility."


6. (C) Talaat Masood told PolCouns that the actual
proceedings of the conference were less important than the
opportunity it provided for discussions that would never have
happened otherwise. For the first time people who had avoided
each other were sitting at the same table. Masood credited
the Indian leadership for allowing broad participation.

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Secondly, according to Masood, the conference had highlighted
that "the age of favorites is over" as evidenced by the fact
that Pakistan and India had been talking to a range of
Kashmiri leaders. Masood noted that Pugwash had been talking
to Kashmiri militant groups, including Hizbul-Mujahedin (but
not "dangerous groups" like Lashkar e-Tayyiba),and that they
too were interested in dialogue. Thirdly, Masood thought it
was significant that a number of Indian officials who
participated had come away impressed with both Musharraf and
Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri, who had hosted a reception
on the opening night.


7. (C) Masood observed that the conference had highlighted a
significant challenge, namely the divisions among the
militant groups. He reported that during one session, the
Kashmiris from the diaspora and from both sides of the LoC
had been sent into a room to deliberate on possible solutions
to the Kashmir conflict, while the Pakistani and Indian
delegates were sent into a second room with the same
instructions. The latter group came to agreement on some
recommendations, while the Kashmiris "could not agree on
anything." In part, Masood blamed diaspora Kashmiris, who
had created "an industry" out of the Kashmir conflict.
However, the Kashmiri "rightists" were also unhelpful because
of "insecurities" as they were caught between militant groups
on the one hand and an evolving peace effort on the other.
As a prominent case in point, he remarked that Yasin Malik
was trying to be a champion of the militants, but that
militant groups were shunning him out of concern that he was
too accommodating on Musharraf's agenda. Masood held Malik
largely responsible for blocking the proposed concluding
statement of the conference, which would have stated that
"violence in all its forms should cease forthwith." (One
press report recounts a shouting match on the steps of the
Foreign Ministry among Kashmiri participants and members of
the Pakistani press corps.)


8. (C) Masood was also concerned that, as he saw it,
Musharraf's advisors in the military and intelligence
services were "out of sync" with the President himself.
Musharraf was much more forward-leaning and flexible than
some of his supporters. Masood considered the Foreign
Ministry to be an exception, however, assessing Kasuri's
performance with the delegates as "brilliant."

Comment
--------------


9. (C) This was the third visit to Pakistan of leading
Kashmiris over the past year, following a visit by an APHC
delegation last June (that included the Mirwaiz) and a visit
by Yasin Malik and others after the October earthquake. The
conference nonetheless represented a milestone in that it saw
the joint participation of an unprecedented range of Kashmiri
groups and included a meeting between Musharraf and a
pro-Indian Kashmiri politician. The event also marked a
continuation of Musharraf's effort to broaden the
constituency in India and Kashmir for his "out of the box"
ideas. The anti-conference stance of militant groups, as
reported in the press, is also a backhanded indication of its
significance. Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen Commander "General"
Abdullah called the conference a "sellout" and accused
Musharraf of seeking to foist Omar Abdullah on the Kashmiri
people. The commander of Al Umar Mujahideen charged
Musharraf with damaging the Pakistani cause at American
behest and characterized Pugwash as "an attempt to put
Kashmir on the back-burner."



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