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Hurriyat to skip roundtable
Tribune News service

Srinagar, May 22
The moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference here today announced its “unanimous” decision not to attend the two-day second roundtable conference to be presided over by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, here from Wednesday.

It, however, sought a separate meeting with the Prime Minister, saying that if he “pleases to agree, leaders will talk to him in Srinagar as well”.

The Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat Conference had stayed away from the first roundtable conference held in New Delhi on February 25, even as it had a separate meeting with the Prime Minister in New Delhi earlier this month on May 3.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the APHC, announced its decision after over a two-hour meeting of the executive council and the general council at the Rajbagh headquarters of the party here this afternoon.

In a two-page statement read out at the end of the meeting, Mirwaiz said the Hurriyat chose to “seize the opportunity of the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Kashmir to take forward the process already in place.”

The Hurriyat Conference considered that “a crowd comprising political hypocrites, even Ikhwanis (pro-government militants), with no agenda can hardly produce a result in terms of a permanent settlement of the Kashmir problem”, Mirwaiz stated. He added that people in the entire South Asian region desperately longed for this permanent settlement “and thus it was decided unanimously not to attend” the roundtable.

The Mirwaiz held that today’s meeting “unanimously reiterated its solemn commitment to the dialogue process aimed at resolving the dispute on Jammu and Kashmir”. The meeting, he said, expressed “its determination to continue talking to India and to Pakistan with a purpose and for a cause.”

With this no major separatist groups, all of whom have received a formal invitation, will be attending the second roundtable being held here on Wednesday and Thursday. The pro-independence JKLF, led by Mohammad Yaseen Malik, and the Democratic Freedom Party, led by Shabir Ahmad Shah, have also decided not to attend the roundtable. One of the APHC constituents, Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, led by former chairman Moulvi Abbas Ansari, had already expressed its unwillingness to attend the conference, though it had left the final decision to the conglomerate. The hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, had on Saturday rejected the formal invitation to attend the meet that he had received from the Centre.

He said the roundtable was yet another plan to maintain the status quo on Jammu and Kashmir, which could be solved only through the implementation of UN resolutions, grant of the right of self-determination and tripartite talks.

Addressing a public meeting organised at the “martyrs’ graveyard” at Idgah here yesterday on the occasion of the 16th death anniversary of his father, Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq, Umar stressed on the dialogue process to resolve the Kashmir issue.

He held that any decision towards participation in the roundtable would be in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The Mirwaiz said the APHC’s talks process with the governments of India and Pakistan was part of its commitment to the dialogue process. He added that dialogue should be held only with those parties, who have been considering Jammu and Kashmir as disputed.