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| Separatists continue to be divided on bilateral centre-Hurriyat talks | | | Early Times Report
Jammu,November 7:-The separatists in Kashmir continue to be a divided lot as far as their response to the Prime Minister,Manmohan Singh's announcement that th Government of India was willing to talk to all shades of political opinion,including those who are on the other side of the mainstream politics.This time the division is based on their stance on bilateral and trilateral talks.Initially Syed Ali Shah Geelani,who heads the hawks in the separatist camp,used to be in favour of giving people in Jammu and Kashmir the right of self-determination on the plea that this right had been r ecognised by the UN security council in its resolution on Kashmir.
Geelani has been a vocal supporter of Kashmir's incorporation with Pakistan.Of late he has now been favouring tripartite talks.He is opposed to the talks between the Government of India and the Kashmiri separatists.It is his opposition to centre-Hurriyat dialogue that right from 2003 onwards he did ot join centre-Hurriyat talks.Now that these stalled talks have started showing signs of reopening Geelani has stuck to his st and that the Kashmir issue can be settled only through tripartite talks.
Since Chairman APHC,Molvi Umar Farooq,had made yet another bid to forge unity with the Geelani faction of the Hurriyat conference in order to unite the separatists during the resumption of t alks with the centre.But when such attempts failed Molvi Umar,even after having supported Prime Minister's initiative on the resumption of talks,has started favouring tripartite talks.This way Molvi Umar wants to keep both the options open.He does not want to seal the possibility of the stalled talks between the centre and the APHC getting resumed.At the same time he wants to side with the hawks so that he does lose their goodwill totally.
Another senior separatist leader who has supported Geelani's stand is Shabi Ahmed Shah.Shah has openly opposed bilateral talks.He told this correspondent "bilateral talks will not settle the Kashmir issue" adding that "we should not waste time on holding bilateral talks." He explained that in the past there have been bilateral negotiations and settlements but none succeeded in resolving the kashmir issue.He said since Pakistan,India and people of Jammu and Kashmir "are a party to the Kashmir issue all the three be involved in sustained and meaningful dialogue."He said "if we are for a durable settlement of the Kashmir issue the solution has to be evolved during a tripartite meeting between India,Pakistan and the representatives of people of Jammu and Kashmir."
If the APHC is willing to participate in the proposed talks with the centre it does not indicate that it is not in favour of tripartite talks.A senior APHC leader,Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat,said "we are for talks with the Government of India and at th sametime we favour trilateral talks."He said that "we want the preliminaries to be first discussed between the separatists and the Indian Prime Minister which could be taken up for further discussion during the tripartite talks."He made it clear that "we want the Indo-Pak composite dialogue to get resumed and when the time approached we could be involved in those composite talks which would mean trilateral talks."
Indications are that the National Conference and the PDP were trying to take advantage of the dicision in th separatist camp y trying to evolve a fusion of the self-rule and greater autonomy.The PDP leadership has already desire that National Conference agree on a joint meet ing for working out a solution for the Kashmir issue which could be based on the blend of greater autonomy and the self-rule concept and the National Conference may discuss the PDP offer in the working committee
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