18 January 2004	Sunday	25 Ziqa'ad 1424

SRINAGAR, Jan 17: A top Kashmiri leader, one of five due to hold the first high-level talks with India next week, said on Saturday that the United States was facilitating the current peace process between India and Pakistan.

"Washington is making a sincere effort to improve relations between India and Pakistan and promote peace in the region," Umar Farooq, a leading Kashmiri leader told AFP.

Leaders of India and Pakistan during a regional summit in Pakistan earlier this week agreed to hold composite dialogue on all pending issues, including Kashmir, next month.

He said that during his recent trip to New Delhi he met a US delegation which showed him a report on how Washington was facilitating talks between the two neighbours.

"The process is moving forward on the same lines," he said, adding that the delegation had given the assurance that the "wishes and aspirations" of the Kashmiri people would not be ignored.

Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha this week denied there was pressure from any other country which helped the breakthrough between India and Pakistan during the talks in Islamabad.

"People in India and Pakistan would not like to think this (peace process) was the result of any third party pressure - and it is not even true," Mr Sinha told London's Financial Times newspaper.

Mr Farooq is part of a five-member Kashmiri leaders' team that is to hold talks with Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani next Thursday in New Delhi.

"We will be leaving for New Delhi in a day or two," he said, "and hold talks with India over Kashmir."

"Talks will be exclusively Kashmir-centric and unconditional. We will plead our case as we have a strong case," he said.

"The dialogue will be a big test for India's sincerity towards resolving the issue of Kashmir."

He said if talks failed to get desired results, "we will inform the people."-AFP