NEW DELHI, July 7: A Pakistan official's quest for a credible Kashmiri role in talks with India over the region's future has prompted a search for unity in the fractious All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) , the group's first former chief told Dawn on Wednesday.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Khokhar, recently in New Delhi, had complained to Mirwaiz Umar Farooq that a debilitating split in the APHC - with one faction headed by Jammu and Kashmir's Jamaat-i-Islami nominee Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the other following the Shia cleric Maulvi Abbas Ansari - was unhelpful.

The Mirwaiz, APHC's first chairman, said Maulvi Abbas Ansari, had stepped down on Wednesday at a meeting of the faction in Srinagar on Wednesday after vainly nominating the Mirwaiz, himself the founder chairman of the undivided APHC, as his successor.

"Obviously, I didn't accept the chairmanship," Maulvi Umar Farooq said from Srinagar. "My suggestion was that we must keep the post of the chairman vacant till we reunite as the powerful APHC we set out to be. That's where we stand."

The search for unity would entail bringing back a disparate lot of leaders who came together under one umbrella on July 31, 1993. The APHC's executive council consists of seven members from seven executive parties.

They are: Syed Ali Shah Geelani of Jamat-i-Islami, Umar Farooq of Awami Action Committee, Sheikh Abdul Aziz of People's League, Moulvi Abass Ansari of Itehad-ul-Muslimeen, Prof Abdul Gani Bhat of Muslim Conference, Yasin Malik of the JKLF and Abdul Gani Lone of People's Conference, who was assassinated on May 21, 2002.

Apart from the executive council, the Hurriyat working committee comprises 21 members. They include two members each from the seven parties besides one member who represents the party in the executive council.

The Mirwaiz said he would lead the unity bid, beginning this week. "We have to set our own house in order before setting out for talks with India or Pakistan," he said.

It is significant that the APHC constitution refers to the UN Charter as a key principle in its quest for its right to self-determination. It seeks "to wage a peaceful struggle to secure for the people of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the UN charter and the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council."

It says the exercise of the right to self-determination shall include the right to independence. If there were a deviation from the APHC's original quest that caused a split, it would be rectified, the Mirwaiz said.