Kasuri to meet Kashmiri separatists

About half-a-dozen Kashmiri separatist leaders will meet Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri here tomorrow. As in the past, New Delhi has chosen to ignore this meeting, which otherwise is a breach of diplomatic norms.

The leaders belong to Kashmir-based splinter groups of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) - one headed by young Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, the peacenik, and the other by aging hardliner Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani.The latter favours Kashmir's accession to Pakistan.

A spokesperson for the Kashmiri leaders told Business Standard that "all of them have received proper invites by the Pakistan High Commission." Prominent among those likely to meet Kasuri are Geelani, Umer Farooq, Yasin Malik, Shabir Shah and Javed Ahmed Mir.

The leaders were invited for a breakfast meeting on Friday. However, the meeting was likely to take place tomorrow evening, Pakistan High Commission sources said.

"We are not expecting much from the meeting but it will make us feel that we are in the reckoning while India and Pakistan talk," a Hurriyat leader said.

Analysts feel the meeting is a political move by Pakistani dignitaries, who want to show their "continued" concern and patronage to "rebels" while they pursue peace with India. They say Kasuri is also trying to play to the gallery--hardliners in Pakistan who need an assurance on Islamabad's support for the Kashmir cause.

India had reacted sharply when Pakistan had invited Hurriyat leaders for a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf when he had visited New Delhi.