07 January 2004	Wednesday	14 Ziqa'ad 1424

NEW DELHI, Jan 6: Leading pro-freedom Kashmiris said on Tuesday that they were willing to wait patiently for their inclusion in the proposed talks between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan territory.

"It is better to be slow and firm than to succumb to the hype of Agra and similar other disappointments in the past," Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq said on the telephone from Srinagar.

The former chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and Kashmir's spiritual leader praised the leaders of India and Pakistan for initiating what he described as a "process not to be confused with solutions".

"Let it take time. What happens will be an outcome of negotiations, not the imposition of the will of any one party. So let's see what happens in February," Maulvi Farooq said, referring to the proposed composite dialogue that both sides announced in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Maulvi Farooq said Kashmiri leaders were due to start a dialogue with New Delhi. "We would expect that a similar dialogue would be allowed to be initiated between us and Islamabad. Let us travel there."

Supporting the proposal to start a bus link between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, the Mirwaiz said: "Let us begin with buses to ferry people and then move towards trucks to boost commerce between Kashmir's varied regions and beyond."

"This is the first time that the Indian and Pakistani leaders have started seeing people and not the geographical borders between the two countries," said Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat, another former chairman of the APHC.

"We welcome the renewed spirit of friendship and confidence between India and Pakistan," Prof Bhat told reporters in Srinagar. "It is only after countries start feeling the heartbeats of their people that ways are opened for the resolution of the disputes between them."

Maulvi Abbas Ansari, one of the two claimants to the chairmanship of the currently divided APHC, said a long pending dispute like Kashmir could not be expected to be resolved overnight.