APHC leaders to meet Pak Foreign Secy on Nov 14
Our Correspondent

Jammu, November 10
Despite the state authorities suggestion to the Centre to prevent the Pakistan Foreign Secretary from meeting Kashmiri separatists in Delhi, leaders of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, the Tehrik Hurriyat Conference, the Democratic Freedom Party and the JKLF were busy preparing to meet Mr Riaz Ahmed Khan soon after he reaches Delhi on November 14.

Prof Abdul Gani Bhat, Mr Bilal Gani Lone, Maulvi Abbas Ansari and Aga Hassan Badgami (all members of the executive committee) will represent the APHC. Syed Ali Shah Geelani from the Tehrik Hurriyat Conference, Mohammad Yasin Malik from the JKLF and Mr Shabir Ahmed Shah from the Democratic Freedom Party too have been invited by Mr Khan.

According to Prof Bhat, “The leaders of the APHC are to meet the Foreign Secretary in the evening of November 14.” “We shall meet Mr Khan, not with other separatist leaders,” he said, adding that “when ideas and strategies differ there is no point meeting the Foreign Secretary in the company of Mr Geelani, Mr Malik and Mr Shah.”

To a question Prof Bhat said: “We will impress upon Mr Khan to take steps so that the ongoing dialogue produce results.”

Asked whether the APHC team will press for their involvement in the talks, Prof Bhat said: “We have been talking with India and Pakistan. If there are yawning gaps between one meeting and the other it does not matter.”

When reminded that as per the agenda the two sides were scheduled to discuss the Siachen issue with pointed reference to Sir Greek, the APHC leader said that “if the two sides discuss the Siachen dispute it does not indicate that the Kashmir issue does not exist.” He said: “Both Delhi and Islamabad know that since Kashmir was the mother of all problems it had to be resolved in the interest of peace in the subcontinent.”

He said that “it is imperative for Delhi and Islamabad to keep the bilateral talks Kashmir-centric even if the two sides discuss Siachen and other allied issues.” Prof Bhat made it clear that the APHC had been holding purposeful talks and the day was not far when such parleys bore fruit.”

Official sources said the state authorities had conveyed to the Union Home Ministry that inviting Kashmiri separatists to talks by the Pakistan Foreign Secretary on the sidelines of the Foreign Secretary-level talks usually sent wrong signals. The authorities had suggested that such interaction should be prohibited on the Indian soil though invitation to these separatists during Iftaar parties in the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi was altogether different from the one in the pipeline.