NEW DELHI, Sept 8: India’s officially encouraged Kashmir Committee on Sunday backed the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in its bid to send emissaries to Pakistan for peace talks there.

Maulvi Umar Farooq, a senior APHC leader, told Dawn that Sunday’s talks between the APHC leadership, headed by the pro-Pakistan chairman Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat and the Kashmir Committee, led by former government minister Ram Jethmalani, had made unexpected progress.

A joint statement released after the talks at Jethmalani’s New Delhi residence said: “The APHC and the Kashmir Committee have unanimously agreed that all concerned

parties must rise above their traditional views, abandon extreme positions and show the necessary flexibility and realism to reach an acceptable solution.”

They also ‘condemned all forms of violence, including that perpetrated by some sections of the state’.

The statement also appealed to the governments of India and Pakistan to create conditions for reducing tension on the Indo- Pakistan border.

The two parties have also agreed that the Kashmir Committee, headed by Ram Jethmalani, should meet its counterpart in Pakistan, headed by former prime minister of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Sardar Abdul Qayoom Khan.

Mirwaiz said the APHC would appeal to Pakistani leadership to to join its quest of a durable, acceptable and permanent resolution to the Kashmir conflict.

“A few years earlier our position would have been seen as a sellout to India,” Mirwaiz said. “Today the circumstances are so different that what we are seeking to achieve has the support of the widest section of the people involved.”

Emerging out of a 150-minute meeting, the leaders asked all concerned parties to abandon their traditional positions and show some flexibility and realism in resolving the issue.

The two sides agreed that “the process of dialogue could be best nurtured through a structured dialogue between all concerned parties.”

“The (Kashmir) Committee supports Hurriyat’s wish to pursue a dialogue for peace and a durable solution with Pakistani Government and Kashmiri political elements there,” the joint statement said.

The statement of the Committee supporting the Hurriyat demand for visit to Pakistan is likely to set off a controversy as New Delhi has previously rejected the move.