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ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, NOV 15: All Party Hurriyat Conference chairman, Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq, during a day-long jaunt here today reportedly met Pakistan High Commissioner, Mr Shahid Malik. Mirwaiz is thought to be a moderate voice among Kashmir’s separatist leaders and an ardent supporter of dialogue to resolve the vexed issue of Kashmir. He was with the High Commissioner for about for about four hours today.
The Mirwaiz also held discussion about the Kashmir issue with long time family friend Mr Bhushan Bazaz who heads Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Forum. Later, Mr Bazaz told Early Times that the Mirwaiz came last night on an unscheduled visit from Kishtwar and remained busy in the Capital throughout the day. He would leave for Jammu and Kashmir tomorrow morning, added the JKDF chief.
With Mirwaiz’s today’s meeting with the Pakistani envoy here, the diplomatic activity with regard to Kashmir is likely to gain momentum. Towards the end of this month or early next month a Hurriyat delegation is likely to visit Pakistan. Islamabad had already extended an invitation for talks to Mirwaiz when he had visited New York at the time of UN General Assembly session and met senior Pakistan leaders in United States in September this year.
Yet, amid the intense diplomatic efforts that Pakistan prefers to call as “backchannel” and India as “quiet” diplomacy to resolve the Kashmir tangle, the hard line separatist leader and head of Jamate Islami in Kashmir Valley, Mr Syed Ali Shah Geelani, remains cold to these moves. He has been critical of Pakistan’s pro-US stance in the wake of Afghan war. Thus far diplomatic efforts to take Mr Geelani on board and push the dialogue process have been treated with indifference by him.
This has also been delaying the visit by a Hurriyat delegation to Pakistan which is likely to be led by the Mirwaiz. There has been no word whether Mr Geelani or any of his representatives would be part of such a delegation. Mr Geelani has said that he would prefer to wait for a change in Pakistan’s intensely pro-US policy rather than dealing with the present US-backed regime in Islamabad.
Because of such diverse perceptions among Hurriyat factions about Pakistan, mainly its present rulers and their foreign policy, the dialogue process has virtually been stalled and both Islamabad and New Delhi have been waiting for Hurriyat factions to strike a common ground and speak in one voice.
Such diplomatic hitch in resuming dialogue that Islamabad often calls as “composite” and India as “talks” has also been accentuated by last November’s attack on Mumbai. And now as the 26/11 attack on Mumbai is getting nearly a year old, the arrest of two alleged plotters, by US Police of this or more terror attacks against India has further complicated the relations between India and Pakistan.
These are the reasons that understandably led Mirwaiz to shun contact with the Press during his visit here today. Mr Bazaz said that the Mirwaiz was not going to issue any statement as of now about his visit here, nor he had time for talking to media persons as he was likely to be busy to the last minute of his Delhi visit this time.
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