A twist in the tale: Pak to meet Hurriyat in Delhi

By NewsGram Staff Writer

With the National Security Advisers' talk coming up, Pakistan High Commission has invited leaders of Hurriyat to meet Pakistan NSA Sartaj Aziz during his stay in Delhi. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and other separatist leaders such as Yasin Malik and Naeem Khan have been invited by the Pakistan envoy.

In 2014, a similar incident had taken place. India had cancelled the scheduled talks between Foreign Secretaries in Islamabad over the Pakistan High Commissioner's meeting with Hurriyat leaders in Delhi. By calling off the meeting, India alluded the fact that Pakistan's meeting with the Hurriyat was unacceptable to it.

However, this time Mr.Aziz is to meet the Hurriyat leaders after the reception and not before his scheduled talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.

A ceasefire at the LoC by the Pakistani soldiers had reportedly led to the death of 6 civilians. The invitation to the Hurriyat will also be seen in the context of a series of developments many inside the government see as "provocations" from Pakistan ahead of the talks.

Recently, PM Nawaz Sharif and Modi received harsh censure for excluding Jammu and Kashmir in their UFA statements. The Hurriyat leaders showed their annoyance at such an exclusion by boycotting the Pakistan High Commission's Eid Milan function in July. However, an anomaly occurred at the Independence Day of Pakistan, when Abdul Basit declared that,"No matter how much more time their legitimate struggle takes, Pakistan will never abandon Kashmiris and their cause."

The NSA-level talks — following last month's agreement in Russia between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif to resume dialogue; are important as it shall include cross-border terrorism, border violence and attacks like the ones in Udhampur and Gurdaspur.