On eve of Indo-Pak talks, Mehbooba on her way to Delhi to give PDP inputs

Just ahead of Pak Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s visit to New Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart K. Natwar Singh, a group ...

Just ahead of Pak Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s visit to New Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart K. Natwar Singh, a group of politicians from Kashmir are on their way to the capital on a special mission.

Mehbooba Mufti, the firebrand chief of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been invited to attend a high-level brainstorming session of UPA partners to chalk out a strategy for talks with Pakistan. Then Kasuri has also invited separatist leaders from all factions—including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Sheikh Aziz, Shabir Shah, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Although Pakistan does not recognise the Hurriyat Conference led by the Mirwaiz, he was invited with the others for a closed-door meet with Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar in New Delhi just before talks with his Indian counterpart in July.

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The aim was to reunite the various separatist groups under Geelani’s leadership and also discuss Pakistan’s agenda for talks. In fact, senior separatist leader Sheikh Aziz—one of the six members of the top executive of the erstwhile united Hurriyat—later joined Geelani.

And now when Kasuri is visiting New Delhi, he has called the Mirwaiz for talks. Sources said that Pakistan is keen to see him join the Geelani-led Hurriyat that has emerged powerful especially after Mirwaiz’s faction has been marginalised because of glitches in their dialogue with New Delhi.

	NDA will be briefed as well

			• On the eve of Foreign Minister talks, K. Natwar Singh will brief both the UPA as well as the NDA coalitions. • Kasuri arrives on September 4 and will be in India for five days • He will call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former P M Vajpayee, leader of the Opposition L K Advani, National Security Adviser J N Dixit, and possibly even a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Kasuri will also meet Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar.

The reason for Pakistan’s interest in Mirwaiz is clear. He is the only separatist leader in the camp involved in talks with New Delhi, who has a political constituency in the Valley. He is the founder chairman of the erstwhile Hurriyat as well and, more importantly, the head priest of Kashmir’s Grand Mosque.

Pakistan is also interested to see JKLF supremo Yasin Malik and Democratic Freedom Party leader Shabir Shah, who have remained neutral keeping a distance from both groups to join Geelani-led Hurriyat.

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There is another view. Pakistan’s consistent initiative to talk to the Srinagar-based separatist leaders especially before the dialogue with New Delhi has political connotations as well. It is an effort to ‘‘indirectly’’ turn the Indo-Pak talks into a tripartite affair. Then it is also a public gesture to give Kashmiri separatists a sense of involvement in Indo-Pak talks, raise their profile inside the Valley, and more importantly, eclipse New Delhi’s Kashmir process.

Sources reveal that this move by Pakistan was not taken well by the Centre but they didn’t prevent the separatists. Now New Delhi, too, has felt the need to involve the mainstream leadership in Kashmir before going ahead with the talks with Pakistan. Mehbooba Mufti, who heads the ruling PDP and also represents Anantnag in Parliament, is known for her strong views on the Kashmir peace process.