SINCE 1990, when Benazir Bhutto announced February 5 as Kashmir Solidarity Day, it continues to be a national holiday marked by processions and public meetings. This time, activities started a day earlier in Pakistan and on both sides of the LoC. A conference was held in Muzaffarabad under the aegis of the Muttahida Jihad Council which drew hundreds of people, and the APHC staged demonstrations in Srinagar calling on the UN to resolve the issue in accordance with its own resolutions. On Thursday, demonstrations and rallies by political parties were held all over the country and Azad Kashmir. The Punjab Assembly held a special session where legislators unanimously passed a resolution condemning the maltreatment of minorities in India and demanding a resolution of the Kashmir issue. Parliament's Kashmir Committee and the Azad Kashmir government decided to send a joint memorandum to President Obama calling on him to use his clout to help settle the dispute. Unlike last year, when President Zardari had maintained that Pakistan would like to set the problem aside for future generations to solve and concentrate on improving economic relations with India, the tensions over the Mumbai attacks led him to modify that stand. In his message released on the Solidarity Day, he reassured Kashmiris that "Pakistan remains firmly committed to finding a just and peaceful solution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir." To achieve this end, he wanted them to be associated with the dialogue process. "We are in no doubt that ultimately Kashmiris would be the final arbiter of their destiny," he said in his message. President Obama's linking of peace in Afghanistan to the settlement of the Kashmir dispute had created expectations that Washington would now help in its resolution in accordance with the Kashmiris' wishes. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's suggestion that "resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms" had inspired similar hopes, leading to a lull in militancy in the Indian-occupied Kashmir. This had created ideal conditions for a permanent resolution of the dispute. Unfortunately, India has dawn the wrong conclusion from the respite. Indian National Security Adviser M K Narayanan thinks the problem has disappeared as "Kashmir has become one of the quieter and safer places in this part of the world" and that President Obama should avoid trying to broker peace between India and Pakistan on the issue. Unless India agrees to resolve this core issue in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiris, the relative calm in Kashmir is likely to turn out to be a temporary phenomenon.