Hurriyat leaders to meet PM on January 17

Srinagar, Jan 10: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to hold third round of talks with leaders of the moderate Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in New Delhi on January 17, sources said today.

A three-member Hurriyat delegation, led by chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, is expected to meet the Prime Minister. The other members of team would be Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat and Bilal Ghani Lone.

The sources said the moderate Hurriyat leaders had received postive feelers from various interlocutors suggesting that the Prime Minister had agreed to meet them before their visit to Pakistan.

The Hurriyat leaders had repeatedly expressed a desire to meet the Prime Minister before they travelled to Islamabad.

They said the Hurriyat leaders after receiving the green signal from interlocutors decided to delay the Pakistan visit by a day.

A three-member Hurriyat delegation, comprising the Mirwaiz, Prof Bhat and Bilal Lone, was earlier scheduled to leave for Lahore from New Delhi via Wagah border on January 17, but would now depart on January 18.

The meeting is likely to take place after the Prime Minister's return from Philippines where he is going to attend the ASEAN and East Asia Summits on January 14-15 to be held at Cebu near Manila.

Dr Singh is likely to return on January 15-16.

The sources said it was almost certain now that the Hurriyat leaders would get an invitation from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) for a meeting with Dr Singh in a day or two.

At the Hurriyat Executive Committee meeting here on Monday, the separatist amalgam decided that it would accept an invitation from New Delhi for another round of talks with the Prime Minister.

The proposed meeting between the moderate Hurriyat leaders and Dr Singh would be the third since the Congress-led UPA government assumed power at the Centre in May 2004. The Prime Minister met a Hurriyat delegation, led by the Mirwaiz, for the first time on September 5, 2005, marking the resumption of the dialogue between the Centre and the amalgam leaders.

The Hurriyat leaders had earlier held two rounds of talks with the BJP-led NDA government. They had held talks with the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani for the first time on January 22, 2004 and later on March 27, 2004.

Dr Singh again met the Hurriyat leaders on May 3 last year, a few weeks ahead of the second round-table conference on Kashmir in Srinagar on May 24-25.

The Prime Minister had chaired the conference, which was boycotted by all the separatist groups, including the moderate Hurriyat Conference. Dr Singh had also chaired the first round-table conference in New Delhi on February 25, 2006.

Since the second round-table conference, the Centre-Hurriyat talks had remained suspended.

During the Pakistan visit, the Hurriyat leaders would hold talks with President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri and other senior leaders of the ruling and opposition parties.

UNI

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