Saturday, March 12 2005 11:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jammu: Time was ripe for India and Pakistan to resolve all "long festering problems" between them as relations between both the countries were upbeat and militancy was on a decline in Jammu and Kashmir, Governor Lt Gen J K Sinha said.

"Now is the time for us to resolve the long festering problems," General Sinha said in Jammu yesterday (Mar 11, 2005) in his valedictory address at the close of a two-day seminar on India and Pakistan.

Asserting that the people of Jammu and Kashmir were fed up with violence, he said both the countries could chalk out their future for peace in the backdrop of the sub-continent's rich ethos by avoiding the pitfalls of religious fanaticism and violence.

"Much water has flown down the Chenab and Jhelum rivers from the bad old days as a lot of blood has been spilled. The people of Kashmir, sick and tired of violence, are longing for peace and so are the people elsewhere in India and in Pakistan," he said.

Sinha, who was addressing the seminar organised jointly by the Centre for Strategic and Regional Studies (CSRS), Jammu University and the Army, said the State was "emerging out of the tunnel of violence into the sunshine of peace and prosperity".

Terming poverty and backwardness as the common enemies, he urged Pakistan to let people of Kashmir not be denied of power from the Jhelum at Mangla or the Chenab at Baglihar.