NEW DELHI, Aug 31 (UNI): The Kashmir peace process received the much required fillip today when Prime Minister Manmohan Singhinvited the Mirwaiz Omar Farooq-led moderate Hurriyat Conferencefor talks here on September five.
The invitation, which was accepted by the Hurriyat Conference, marks the resumption of the much-awaited dialogue between the Centre and the Hurriyat Conference after more than one and a half years.
"The Prime Minister has been in touch with the moderate Hurriyat leaders through various interlocutors and has invited them for talks on September five," Dr Sanjaya Baru, Media Adviser to the Prime Minister said.
The meeting is the first between Hurriyat leaders and the Prime Minister after the installation of the UPA government in May 2004.
The Hurriyat leaders had held two rounds of talks with then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani when the BJP-led NDA Government was in power at the Centre.
Leaders of other separatist groups, including the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Yaseen Malik and Democratic Freedom Party Shabir Ahmed Shah, were not part of that delegation.
Hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had also stayed away from the dialogue with the Centre.
The groundwork for the talks with the amalgam leaders had been prepared by Centre's Interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir N N Vohra and Wajahat Habibullah, Secretary in the Panchayati Raj Ministry.
Both had recently visited Kashmir as part of special missions to finalise the details for the talks, to be held barely ten days before Dr Singh meets Gen Musharraf in New York on September 14 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.
On Saturday, Habibullah had a closed-door meeting with moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Farooq at his Nigeen residence in Srinagar and discussed the resumption of the dialogue.
The Hurriyat had also summoned a crucial meeting of its Executive Committee, the General Council and the Working Committee yesterday to discuss the outcome of the "secret" talks the Mirwaiz held with the Panchayati Raj Secretary.
Vohra had also visited the state a few days ago.
In Srinagar, the Mirwaiz told UNI, "We have received the invitation from the Prime Minister's office and we have in principal accepted it." However, he said, the members of the Executive Council, Working committee and the General Council will meet tomorrow at to discuss the offer.
Terming the Prime Minister's invitation as a positive development that would help further promote the atmosphere of peace in the state, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said, "the move highlights the seriousness with which the Centre is addressing the Jammu and Kashmir issue." The Chief Minister hoped that the talks would be the forerunner of a wider dialogue in which other groups in the state would see the merit of the dialogue and join the process.
Dr Singh, in his Independence Day speech, had renewed the talks offer to Kashmiri separatists but warned them of a "befitting reply and hard response" if they continued with violence.
"I have said before and I am repeating once again that there is no issue which cannot be resolved through the process of discussion and dialogue.
Our doors are always open and will continue to be open for anybody interested in dialogue," he said.
In an apparent softening of its stand in the run up to the third round of talks, the Centre allowed the Mirwaiz and other senior moderate Hurriyat leader Moulvi Ansari to travel abroad.
On August 11, the Mirwaiz was allowed to visit Saudi Arabia to perform 'Umrah' and condole the death of King Fahd bin Abdelaziz, and to Iran to congratulate its new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Barely a week later, Ansari was also permitted to travel to Pakistan to attend a religious conference in Karachi and to Iran.
Moulvi Ansari, who left New Delhi for Karachi on August 17 in a PIA aircraft, later joined Mirwaiz Farooq in Saudi Arabia.
In April, Dr Singh had given his consent for talks with the moderate Hurriyat Conference and three dates were short listed.
However, the separatist leaders refused to meet the Prime Minister and stuck to their demand of first holding discussions with the Pakistani leadership and travelling to Pakistan and PoK.
Much to the displeasure of the authorities, the amalgam leaders held a marathon meeting with the Pakistan President on April 17 here.
The separatists have also held a series of meetings with other visiting Pakistani leaders, including Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, here.
However, as a goodwill gesture the Centre had allowed a seven-member Hurriyat delegation, led by Mirwaiz Farooq, to visit PoK in the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus on June 2.
Permission for the visit was a long-standing demand of the separatists to resume talks with the Centre.
The separatist leaders later visited Pakistan on an invitation from Islamabad, which India termed as a violation of the understanding between the two countries on the cross-border bus service.
The Centre said the Hurriyat and other separatist leaders' journey to PoK on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus was cleared on the basis of agreed procedures between the two countries.
The bilateral understanding on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service is that travel is limited to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir on the basis of permits issued by the two sides.
The government also issued passports to those Hurriyat leaders who did not possess them and made a request for the issue of such documents.
The Centre, in July 2003, had returned the impounded passport of Mirwaiz Farooq.
After their return from Pakistan and PoK, the moderate Hurriyat Conference leaders had repeatedly expressed willingness to resume the dialogue with the Centre.
The senior leaders of the amalgam, at various forums, had said that they were ready to talk to the Prime Minister at any place and date convenient to him.
