M A I N   N E W S

PM invites Hurriyat for talks
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 31
In a renewed peace initiative, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has invited the moderate Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Omar Farooq for talks on the protracted Kashmir issue here on September 5.

The meeting assumes significance as it signals the resumption of dialogue between the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and the Hurriyat Conference after more than 18 months. The discussions also come barely a fortnight before Dr Singh’s meeting with Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in New York.

“The Prime Minister has been in touch with the moderate Hurriyat leaders through various interlocutors and has invited them for talks on September 5,” the Prime Minister’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru said here today.

Dr Singh has maintained that he is ready to hold talks with any group that eschews violence and warned that his government will come down heavily against acts of terrorism that disturbs peace and development of Jammu and Kashmir.

After its recent visit to PoK and Islamabad, the Hurriyat had expressed its desire to meet with the central leadership. Gen Musharraf had also favoured sitting across the table with the Manmohan Singh government.

The all-party grouping from Kashmir had held two rounds of discussions with former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani during the BJP-led NDA government in May 2004. Leaders of other separatist groups like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Democratic Freedom party as well as the Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani had stayed away from the dialogue with the Centre.

The groundwork for the talks with the Hurriyat has been prepared by the Centre’s interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir N N Vohra and Panchayati Raj ministry Secretary Wajahat Habibullah. Mr Vohra and Mr Habibullah had recently visited Kashmir in this connection.

The first indication of the resumption of talks came during the Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Independence Day when he made a fresh offer to the Kashmiri separatists and declared that a “befitting and hard response” awaits them if they continued with violence.

Meanwhile, J and K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has welcomed Dr Singh’s invitation to the Hurriyat Conference for talks on September 5 stressing that it is a positive development and highlights the seriousness with which the Union Government is addressing the Jammu and Kashmir issue. It will help in promoting the atmosphere of peace in the state.