Iftar diplomacy — Let Hurriyat be main voice of talks, says Pak

At the high table headed by Pakistani High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi sat Hurriyat leaders. K. Natwar Singh of the Congress foreign affairs cell sat next to Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who had earlier pointed out that the Hurriyat was not insisting that India “simultaenously negotiate with it and Pakistan.”

There could be separate negotiations, the Mirwaiz added, between the Centre, Pakistan and the Kashmiris — of which the Hurriyat was the “legitimate voice”.

Pakistani diplomats echoed these sentiments. They pointed out that Islamabad was keen to return to talks as soon as possible with India and had not insisted that “tripartite” negotiations meant that all three sides sit together at the same able at the same time.

The willingness to abandon the procedure of “tripartite” talks certainly seems to indicate that Pakistan would like to draw India into some sort of negotiating procedure before the Ramazan ceasefire ends. It seems that Islamabad would allow itself to agree to any “talk modalities” set by India, as long as Pakistan could be seen to have not publicly abandoned the Kashmiri militants here.

That may explain the insistence on the part of both Hurriyat and Pakistani diplomats over the centrality of place that needed to be accorded to the Hurriyat in subsequent dialogue with India.

With some leaders in the Hurriyat leaning towards Pakistan, the Kashmiri group certainly does not want to be subsumed in across the board conversations to be called by India, “with all groups, including militants” in the Valley.