[Dhaka Tribune] Defiant Kashmiri separatist leaders continued to meet Pakistain's envoy to New Delhi on Tuesday, a day after India cancelled talks with its nuclear-armed neighbour that prompted a strong reaction from the Pak media and the United States to term the move "unfortunate."Syed Geelani, a big shot of the 26-party Hurriyat Conference, and Jammu and Kashmire Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik
...
chairman of one of the two factions of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. JKLF is a Kashmiri nationalist organization founded in Birmingham, UK in 1977. Branches weren't actually established in Kashmir for another ten years. It has the usual demands for separation of J&K from secular India so it can become an independent Islamic rathole. It seems to have no interest in Pak Kashmir breaking away to join it. In 1994 Malik renounced violence after he was released from jail and from that point he and his organization pursued peaceful means to impose their will on the region...met Pak high commissioner to India Abdul Basit, but it was not immediately clear what they spoke about.
Basit met separatist leader Shabbir Shah on Monday, ignoring the Indian government's warning that doing so could jeopardise the foreign secretary-level talks that were planned for August 25.
Speaking to news hounds before his meeting with Basit, Geelani criticised India's decision, saying it was undemocratic.
"We have been visiting Pakistain embassy several times to hold talks," he said, referring to an almost two-decades-old practice of Kashmiri separatists holding dialogue with Pak officials, including during the tenure of the previous BJP-led government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
"The issue of Jammu and Kashmire is an international issue and it should be solved. As long as promises made to us are not fulfilled, this issue will remain unsolved," Geelani said.
India's move was seen as dampening expectations that the two countries would resume a tentative grinding of the peace processor under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who raised such hopes by inviting South Asian leaders, including his Pak counterpart Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
, to his inauguration in May.
Following Monday's decision by New Delhi, that bonhomie is looking like a distant dream, prompting Washington to call the move "unfortunate."
"It is unfortunate that planned talks between India and Pakistain have fallen through," US state department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf told news hounds after the cancelling of talks.