Wajahat goes to push stalled J&K talks

Ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir next month — the October 25 trip has been rescheduled — T...

Ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir next month — the October 25 trip has been rescheduled — Textile Secretary Wajahat Habibullah is now in the Valley to do the groundwork for revival of talks with leaders of separatist parties.

Habibullah, who has been emerging as the government pointman on Kashmir, left for the Valley on Sunday after a long discussion with Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Special Advisor to Prime Minister M K Narayanan.

Habibullah and Narayanan, who has been asked by Manmohan Singh to concentrate

on Kashmir and the North-East, met Patil at his North Block office last Friday.

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According to Home Ministry sources, Habibullah, a 1968 batch J&K cadre officer, will persuade JKLF president Yasin Malik and J&K Democratic Freedom Party leader Shabir Shah to open talks with the Centre.

Together with Narayanan, he has been working the back-channels with Kashmiri separatist groups, including the Hurriyat, to revive the dialogue process. With the Hurriyat still undecided on getting back to the talk table, Habibullah will urge Malik, Shah and other Kashmiri leaders to step forward.

	Meanwhile, Mufti on his way to meet Patil

			• NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who has just been elected to the state Assembly from Pahalgam, will meet Home Minister Shivraj Patil in New Delhi on Tuesday.

In Kashmir this entire week, he is also expected to call on Hurriyat leaders. Sources said the Habibullah and Narayanan have been working on a Kashmir package for the past month in consultation with internal security agencies. Besides the peace talks, the package also includes revival of Kashmir’s handloom industry with a significant dose of Central assistance to local carpet weavers.

Habibullah was also used by NDA’s Kashmir interlocutor K C Pant to get Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah to participate in the democratic process during the 2002 J&K Assembly elections.

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But the exercise was doomed when Pant invited Habibullah to Planning Commission under full media glare to discuss talks with separatist leaders. Ever since he took charge as Textile Secretary on August 1, Habibullah has been used by the Prime Minister’s Office as a channel to revive the Kashmir dialogue. In fact, Narayanan and Habibullah even went through the pre-1996 agreements with the Kashmiris to understand which initiative had been well-received.