Hurriyat brings peace tune to Delhi, envoys

Most talked about has been the visit by MMA chief and ideologue Fazlur Rahman, who openly met Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, a key Hurriyat ‘‘moderate’’, at New Delhi’s Meridien Hotel during his trip here. Observers here said Rahman seemed to have given a ‘‘lot of advice’’ to Mirwaiz.

Rahman’s early statements reinforcing the Shimla agreement as the bedrock for a bilateral solution was greeted with some nervousness among the hawks in Kashmir. His remarks, soon after he landed in Islamabad, that ‘‘we will not give guns to Kashmir for ever’’ certainly rattled the radicals within the Hurriyat as well.

But it is the Hurriyat makeover towards a more moderate stance under Ansari that is beginning to interest the diplomatic community. The sources said when the Hurriyat refused to participate in the elections, the US and the UK were quite clear that this was a ‘‘missed opportunity.’’ At any cost, the western world is coming around to the belief that violence is abhorrent, whether by a ‘‘terrorist’’ or a ‘‘freedom-fighter.’’ In February, then US ambassador Robert Blackwill had even refused to meet the Hurriyat.

Ram Jethmalani of the Kashmir Committee pointed out ‘‘that so many changes had taken place in the situation since the Hurriyat last came to the capital. We hope that they will respond to the new situation.’’