NEW DELHI, May 26: India's newly-elected government on Wednesday said peace talks with a moderate faction of Kashmir's main separatist alliance were likely to be held in the first week of July.
N.N. Vohra, New Delhi's pointman on Kashmir, told reporters the Indian government would be represented by Home Minister Shivraj Patil and that a decision to "widen the ambit of the talks" would also soon be taken.
The ousted government of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had held two rounds of talks with the moderates, led by Shiite cleric Maulana Abbas Ansari, and had slated a third round for June, after the April-May elections which it lost.
Vohra, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday, said the dates of the fresh talks would depend on the engagements of Patil. A decision on the ambit of the talks will be taken Thursday after a meeting with the home minister, Vohra added.
Ansari said in Srinagar that no news of the planned talks had yet been communicated to his team. "We will meet and discuss the reported proposal," he said. "We are for talks, as talks are the only way to resolve disputes. Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris can find a solution to this perplexed issue," he said.
"The dialogue has to be at a higher level than it has been during the past two rounds," he said. India's new Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, talking to reporters separately, said his new government hoped to resolve the uprising in Kashmir through political measures. "But at the same time we have to tackle cross-border terrorism," Mukherjee said. -AFP
