J&K can become gateway between Central and South Asia: Mehbooba Mufti

Srinagar, July 1 (IANS) Drawing parallels between the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and Jammu and Kashmir, former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Wednesday that J&K could become a gateway between Central Asia and South Asia.

Commenting on more than 100 prominent signatories from India and Pakistan writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said that the situation in the world is changing.

She pointed out how a small country like Iran used its strategic position, the Strait of Hormuz, to put pressure on a powerful country like the US, adding that Jammu and Kashmir also has a strategic geographical position.

She said that just as Iran has the Strait of Hormuz, India has Jammu and Kashmir, which can become the gateway to Central Asia and South Asia.

She added that these routes should be opened and this strategic advantage should be utilised. For that, she said, it is essential that relations with China improve and that ties with Pakistan also improve.

This, she stated, would completely transform Jammu and Kashmir, bringing economic, political, and emotional change to the region.

Mehbooba and her late father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who founded the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in J&K, have been votaries of de-escalating tensions between India and Pakistan as the only means to bring in permanent peace to J&K.

The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP) is a regional political party in Jammu and Kashmir, India. The PDP was headed and founded by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.

His daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, succeeded him as party leader and as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir following his death in January 2016.

The party was a member of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration electoral alliance.

During the heyday of Mufti Sayeed’s political campaign that brought the PDP to power in 2014, the popular slogan was ‘Goli Se Nahin, Boli Se’ (Not through guns, peace can only come through dialogue).

–IANS

sq/dan