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Hurriyat, LeT reject Centre's offer of talks

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba Friday rejected the Centre's offer of talks on Kashmir.

The Hurriyat said no purpose could be served by entering into any kind of dialogue with New Delhi unless it fulfilled its commitment to allow its delegation to visit Pakistan.

Terming the Centre's offer as an exercise in futility, Hurriyat chairman Abdul Gani Bhat told PTI, "The manner in which New Delhi is dealing with the vexed Kashmir issue is without any purpose."

"Unless the Centre fulfils its earlier commitment of allowing an Hurriyat delegation to visit Pakistan and Pak-occupied Kashmir to hold talks with their counterparts and militant leaders there, no purpose can be served by entering into any kind of dialogue with the government," he said.

"We wanted to go to Pakistan. India agreed but the visit never took shape because of rigidity of Indian government," Bhat said.

He, however, made it clear that Hurriyat was not against the spirit of dialogue and that an everlasting solution to Kashmir issue could be found through this medium alone.

On the Centre's not putting any condition for talks, Bhat said there was nothing new about it as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had said the same thing a few months ago.

"We don't want to go by conditionalities. We would like to be guided by realities," he said.

Bhat said, "Only determination and wisdom can help us achieve the desired result and not the nomination of a chief negotiator (Planning Commission Deputy Chairman K C Pant) to hold talks with us."

He, however, added, "I don't reject Pant's nomination. But if you repeat exercises undertaken by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah (1975 accord), where will we go then?"

All relevant parties to the dispute -- India, Pakistan and Hurriyat -- would have to engage themselves in a meaningful dialogue to address the core issue of Kashmir, he said.

Bhat accused the government of adopting an "ambivalent" stand on the visit of Hurriyat's delegation to Pakistan as the trip, he said, was earlier okayed by the prime minister.

The Let said there was no possibility of any such engagement with India.

"The offer is part of the political design to subvert the on-going struggle," LeT spokesman Abu Usama said in a press release faxed to a newspaper in Srinagar.

"India just wants to take the pressure off its security forces but it will not succeed in this," the spokesman said.

Chairman of National Front Nayeem Ahmad Khan, reacting to the offer of talks, said any engagement with the Centre should be informed.

PTI

The Kashmir Cease-Fire: The Complete Coverage

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