We were never against dialogue, but there is no call from Centre: PAGD spokesman

Srinagar, June 13: The newly-appointed spokesman of Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami Sunday said that PAGD had never been against dialogue process but questioned how they could initiate dialogue in absence of an offer from the Centre.

Talking to news gathering agency KNS, Tarigami said that the August 5, 2019 decision was taken by the Centre without taking the political leaders and people of Jammu and Kashmir on board.

   

“There was no demand regarding the revocation of Article 370 and bifurcation of state from any group of people nor was it discussed here with the mainstream parties,” he said.

Criticising the “demotion” of J&K state into a union territory, Tarigami said that there had been examples wherein union territories had been demanding statehood but downgrading J&K state to a Union Territory was neither the demand from Kashmir nor Jammu.

He said that the mainstream parties of J&K had never been against the dialogue process.

“If there will be any call from the Centre regarding dialogue, we will welcome it as we have been committed to dialogues,” Tarigami said.

Stressing that PAGD members were committed to dialogue, he said, “Somehow there was a delay in chairing PAGD meeting but there were some issues especially Covid-19 which somehow took it long to call for a meeting but we are committed to the alliance agenda and there will be no compromise on it.”

Tarigami said that the public outreach programme had been paused due to Covid-19 pandemic as there had been a protocol issued by the government to curb coronavirus.

“Once the pandemic will end, we will take all stakeholders on board to discuss the strategy further. We will resume public outreach programme once the pandemic is over,” he said.

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