Pak "clarifies" Zardari statement

As expected, Pakistan backtracked on the remarks made by Zardari to Wall Street Journal recently.

But what I found interesting was the language and words used by the Information & Broadcasting minister Sherry Rehman.

“There has been no change in this policy,” Rehman said. “The President has never called the legitimate struggle of Kashmiris an expression of terrorism, nor has he downplayed the sufferings of the Kashmiris.

All his statements on India should be viewed in the context of Pakistan’s current bilateral relations with that country,” she added. The government “is firmly committed to extending moral and diplomatic support to the just cause of Kashmiris for their right of self-determination”, Rehman said.

So the struggle of Kashmiris is NOT an expression of terrorism.   But the militants amongst them are terrorists?  If one looks at it dispassionately, the militants are either those who were trained by Pakistani agencies or are outsiders who are in Kashmir just for a Jihadi fight.

If you read the statement carefully, Sherry seems to be suggesting this.  The entire discussion is WHAT is the struggle and WHO is struggling?

Of course, in my view, discussion of the ethnicity “Kashmiri” without implying the Kashmiri Pandits is neither acceptable nor viable!  So, all those Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu, Delhi and elsewhere need to be brought to the table before the “demands of Kashmiri” are ever put on paper.

Notwithstanding what the blind and deaf Indian Central Government thinks, the Kashmiri Pandits will not be allowed to be short-changed in this game of geo-strategic politics!