Srinagar, April 30
Responding to the invitation for talks from Mr K.C. Pant, senior separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah has sought the involvement of only “genuine representatives” of Jammu and Kashmir for a “viable solution” to the Kashmir problem.

“If the Government of India is serious and sincere, it has to engage genuine representatives of people of Jammu and Kashmir in a constructive dialogue to search for a viable solution to the Kashmir tangle. Who they are, is not hard to imagine”, Mr Shabir Ahmad Shah, president of the Jammu Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) said in a letter to Mr Pant, copies of which were circulated here today.

A three-member delegation of the DFP would be meeting the Centre’s chief negotiator with the letter, Mr Shah said. He, however, pointed out that there were certain groups, organisations and individuals who had been invited for talks and were “in line with India”.

“At this critical juncture, redundant elements should be discarded if the road map to permanent peace is to be chalked out”, he said in the letter.

The DFP president stressed the need for tripartite talks as “bilateralism will be a futile exercise”. He said his party stood for a genuine political dialogue to find a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue. He said the Kashmir problem needed to be resolved for the maintenance of peace in South-Asia.

Earlier, talking to mediapersons, Mr Shabir Shah claimed that the letter by Mr Pant was ambiguous and involved several groups, parties and individuals “in tune with the Government of India’s stand”. He said the objective of the letter, therefore, was only “to create confusion”, adding that it distinguished some groups as “ethnically separated from us”. Elaborating on the letter, he said the “requisite seriousness” on the part of the Government of India was missing.