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India Offers Dialogue With Kashmiri Groups
NEW DELHI, April 5 (News Agencies) - India sought to lend fresh impetus Thursday to its four-month old ceasefire in Kashmir by inviting
Kashmiri self-determination groups for a "political dialogue" on restoring peace in the region.
An official statement said Planning Commission deputy chairman and former defense minister K.C. Pant would represent the government, but gave no details as to a venue or timeframe for the talks.
The announcement followed growing criticism that the government had failed to initiate any concrete political follow-up to its suspension four months ago of counter-insurgency operations against Kashmiri outfits.
It also coincided with Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh's visit to the United States, which has repeatedly expressed its desire to see an early resolution of the Kashmir dispute.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the Himalayan region.
"The government has decided to embark on a political dialogue with all sections of the peace-loving people of the state, including those who are currently outside it," the Indian statement said.
"The doors are also not closed for Kashmiri organizations which are currently engaged in militancy in the state, but are desirous of peace."
The statement said the All Party Hurriyat Conference - an amalgam of two-dozen political separatist parties in Kashmir - was equally welcome to participate.
Self-determination groups have already rejected the unilateral ceasefire in place since November, and initial reactions to the latest announcement were negative.
"It is like old wine in a new bottle and a ploy to divide the militants that will always fail," said Jameel Ahmed, spokesman of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen outfit.
The Hurriyat has already said it will only engage in a dialogue after New Delhi issues travel documents allowing its leaders to visit Pakistan for talks with groups and officials there.
The statement appeared to rule out any immediate resumption of talks with Pakistan, saying that while New Delhi had "faith" in such a dialogue, Islamabad had yet to create the correct atmosphere by "curbing cross-government terrorism" in Kashmir.
Hurriyat chairman Abdul Gani Bhat responded warily, stressing that without Pakistan the dialogue would lack teeth.
"I trust if India, Pakistan and the Hurriyat engage in a purposeful dialogue, we will be able to find a way out in the larger interest of the people in the entire region," Bhat told AFP in the Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar
Muslim-majority Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 but remains claimed by both. The conflict on the Indian side has claimed more than 34,000 lives since 1989.
Islamabad rejects India's allegations of sponsoring terrorism, but openly extends moral and diplomatic support to the insurgency in Indian Kashmir.
India allegedly suspended counter-insurgency operations against groups in Kashmir on November 28th. The unilateral ceasefire has since been extended three times and is due to expire at the end of May.
But Thursday's statement warned that the offer of dialogue carried no relaxation of India's determination to crack down on continuing violence in Kashmir.
"To reduce this violence, security forces have been directed to vigorously conduct operations against those who disturb the peace and victimize the innocent people of Kashmir," it said.
In response to India's call Thursday, a Kashmiri separatist group turned down the Indian government's latest offer of dialogue and said it would be "a meaningless exercise without involvement of Pakistan".
"Such offers of bilateral talks have been made in the past also but proved to be just a bluff used by the Indians to hoodwink international opinion," Kashmir's largest group Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman Salim Hashmi said.
He said no solution could be reached on Kashmir by ignoring Pakistan, which controls the northern third of the Himalayan state.
"It is meaningless, just like India's so called ceasefire," Hashmi said, in an obvious reference to New Delhi's unilateral "suspension" of military operations against Kashmiri groups.
Pakistan's foreign office offered no immediate comment on the Indian offer, saying it would comment later.
Talks between Pakistan and India have been suspended for the past two years following a 10-week conflict in the Kargil region in 1999.
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