Hurriyat rejects New Delhi’s dialogue offer

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: After nearly a day of deliberations, the Hurriyat Conference (HC) has rebuffed New Delhi’s latest offer to hold a dialogue between “unofficial” interlocutor Wajahat Habibullah and HC leader Syed Ali Geelani. “The dialogue can only be productive if all three parties affected by the Kashmir dispute are equally involved,” said a press statement issued after the meeting.

According to a HC spokesman, deliberations continued for five hours, after which the executive council pledged “total commitment” to the Hurriyat constitution and its “truthful” stand. They also vowed to take “the movement to its logical conclusion” and said that no matter what the circumstances were, they would stand fast.

The leaders reiterated that “the best and easiest” way to resolve the Kashmir issue would be to implement the UN’s resolutions. “The 13 million people living in Kashmir should be given the right to determine their future,” they said.

Another way to resolve the issue, they said, would be through talks. However, the Hurriyat rejected bilateral talks between New Delhi and Kashmiri representatives. “Our constitution has no scope for such talks and they have never yielded any results in the past. In order for talks to produce results, they should be tripartite,” said the leaders.

Hurriyat leaders said they were concerned about the growing human rights abuses across Kashmir and urged the international community to exert their influence to put an end to them.

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