You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Afghanistan/South Asia
Kashmiri separatist leaders agree to visit Pakistan
2005-05-26
SRINAGAR, India - Leaders of the moderate faction of Indian Kashmir's main political separatist alliance said on Wednesday they had accepted an invitation to visit Pakistan for talks to reload and rearm help end the Kashmir dispute.

The decision of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference came after Islamabad invited Kashmiri separatists to travel across the frontier on a new bus link between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir launched last month. "We have decided to visit Pakistan on June 2 by bus. It will be a spectacular kaboom big step towards the resolution of the Kashmir dispute," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of Hurriyat's moderate faction, told a news conference.

"We will talk to militant and separatist political leaders across (the border) and we will try to resume talks with India after we return from Pakistan," Farooq said after a meeting of Hurriyat leaders in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

Hurriyat bands about two dozen Kashmiri political separatist groups, some of whom are seeking Kashmir's independence and others its merger with Pakistan. The alliance has been considerably weakened after a hardline faction, backed by militant groups, opposed moderates who supported peace talks with New Delhi and walked out of the panel in 2003.

India has in the past been reluctant to allow Hurriyat leaders to visit Pakistan. However, a visit to New Delhi by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last month and his talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh provided new momentum to a peace process between the two countries. An Indian security official told Reuters the government had no objections to the Hurriyat visit.

There was no word yet from Syed Ali Shah Geelani, head of the hardline Hurriyat faction, on whether he would also accept Pakistan's invitation.
Make sure an Indian general embraces him, just as he gets on the bus, and whispers into his ear, sotto voce, "Thanks for the help, Syed, we'd never rolled them up without you." Then shake his hand and let him go.
Posted by:Steve White

#1  Meanwhile, a letter in a Srinagar paper

DEAR EDITOR,
This refers to the recent grenade blast near Biscoe School.

I was posted in the Causality of the SMHS on that fateful afternoon when the disastrous struck wounding little kids.

I don’t want to comment on the motive behind all this cowardly act but I was moved by seeing a child holding my hand and saying, “Uncle please Mujhe bachao, Mujhe nahin marna hai”. “Uncle please save me, I don’t want to die’.

This episode left me in a river of tears and I could just realise what worse our society will have to see if this continues.
Dr Zaid, Email

Posted by: john   2005-05-26 11:34  

00:00