UPA looks for new peace envoys to defuse J-K crisis

ALL IN VAIN: The all-party delegation led by Home Minister Shivraj Patil failed to negotiate with J-K separatists.

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New Delhi: With the all-party delegation led by Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil failing to find a way to defuse the Jammu and Kashmir crisis, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government is now looking for a fresh group of peace envoys.

After External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence late on Friday—ostensibly to discuss the situation in the troubled state—it seems that the Home Minister is now no longer in the picture.

For a government running out of options, perhaps the best way now is to find acceptable emissaries, considering all the failed attempts at negotiations with the separatists.

“Hurriyat was finding itself somewhat sidelined before all this trouble began and it needed an issue on which it could both appear to be moderate and true to its position all along,” senior journalist Prem Shankar Jha says.

The External Affairs Minister cannot be closely involved because Pakistan is trying to internationalise the issue. Hurriyat chief, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, says that the Prime Minister’s participation in the peace process would certainly help.

“If the PM announces that Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road has been for trade, I think that would certainly calm the situation down in Kashmir,” Mirwaiz said.

The Government now has limited options. It can:

• let the tempers cool down, as Mirwaiz has already said that they'll ease the protests from Tuesday
• engage peace ambassadors to buy time
• bring about more transfers in the security hierarchy
• urge paramilitary forces not to be provoked as far as possible

Government sources say that the Prime Minister cannot be fully involved because if the situation goes out of hand he'll have to take the blame. So, it's the trouble-shooter duo of Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony who's taken charge.

Like the trust vote, it is trust of both sides of the Jammu-Kashmir divide that the Government now wants to win.