Give us a month for homework: Hurriyat

These preparations will be led and coordinated by a three-member team. Its members are: chief Maulvi Abbas Ansari, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Fazal Haq Qureshi. Qureshi, incidentally, was the Hizbul Mujahideen’s interlocutor who participated in the failed negotiations with New Delhi after the Hizbul ceasefire in 2000.

Three parties, the JKLF, Jamat Islami and People’s League did not participate in the meeting. But Ansari said that over the next fortnight, his team would start talks with:

• Shabir Shah of the Democratic Freedom Party

• Its rebel group led by Saleem Geelani

• Amanullah Khan or his party’s representative in Kashmir

• Azam Inqilabi who heads the Mahaz-e-Azadi

• Jamat Islami

• Yasin Malik of the JKLF

Ansari, however, was clear that the Hurriyat would not talk to hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani—who split the Hurriyat—or radical groups like the Dukhtaran-e-Millat which today rejected the dialogue offer. ‘‘We don’t want to hurry,’’ Ansari said, ‘‘and will weigh the conditions New Delhi has set for a dialogue.’’

Hurriyat sources said that ‘‘if all moves well,’’ Mirwaiz Umar Farooq would address people on Jumat-ul-vida (last Friday of Ramzan when a huge congregation is assured at the historic Nowhatta mosque) to get a sense of ‘‘which direction the process should go.’’

Sources said that Hurriyat wants to buy time to ‘‘analyse’’ New Delhi’s proposal. One Hurriyat leader said that although the news of Advani holding talks is ‘‘refreshing,’’ there is confusion over what current interlocutor N N Vohra will do. Still, leaders are aware that they cannot afford to say ‘‘no’’ as they are the ones who have been demanding talks at the ‘‘highest political level.’’

Kashmir observers say that the caution is not misplaced. If moderates rush in and then the talks falter or New Delhi’s terms don’t match their ‘‘agenda,’’ they will be hard pressed to explain and maybe seen as the ones who ‘‘compromised.’’

‘‘The Hurriyat ledership is guarded because if talks don’t move forward, there is a fear of them getting discredited,’’ said an observer.