Separatists set to avoid India's Kashmir meeting
Source: Reuters
By Sheikh Mushtaq SRINAGAR, India, April 19 (Reuters) - Kashmir's separatist political alliance said on Thursday it would not take part in a meeting planned by New Delhi to find a solution to the revolt in the Himalayan region unless militant groups and Pakistan attend. Most political separatists, including the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, stayed away last year from two similar Kashmir "roundtable" meetings, an avenue for talks promoted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "Hurriyat will participate in the roundtable conference only if it is meant for discussing the Kashmir issue, but it should include Mujahideen and leaders from India, Pakistan and both parts of Kashmir," Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the larger moderate faction of the Hurriyat, told Reuters. The third roundtable will be held in New Delhi on April 24, chaired by Singh. India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the disputed region both countries claim in full but rule in parts. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir, mainly Hindu India's only Muslim-majority state, in a 17-year-old separatist revolt that hangs over India-Pakistan relations, despite a cautious peace process. "Talks on (the) Kashmir dispute can be only held with the heirs of the martyrs and not with everybody," Farooq, the chief Muslim cleric of the Kashmir Valley, told Reuters. The first two such meetings in February and May 2006 made no headway as mainly pro-Indian parties and groups attended them. Separatists stayed away, saying they did not want to share a platform with leaders or parties who had already agreed Kashmir was an integral part of India. "We fail to understand the logic of inviting pro-India parties who do not question Kashmir's accession to India," said Mohammad Yasin Malik, chief of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, another separatist group. "We have decided not to attend." Officials say more than 42,000 people have been killed since the revolt against Indian rule erupted in Kashmir in 1989. Human rights activists put the toll at about 60,000 dead and missing.
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