NEW DELHI, Jan 17: A three-member delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaz Umar Farooq will begin a week-long visit to Pakistan on Thursday to set up a common minimum programme with Azad Kashmir.
The Mirwaiz told Dawn that the delegation would meet President Gen Pervez Musharraf to explore his recent ideas on an interim solution to the Kashmir dispute.
The proposed plan with leaders of Azad Kashmir may flow from that discussion.
“We want to hear from the president what his four points are about resolving the dispute. We will on our part discuss ways to see how the talks between India and Pakistan are having any impact on the ground reality in Kashmir, if at all.”
But perhaps the most important agenda for the delegation, which also includes former Hurriyat chairman Abdul Gani Butt and Bilal Lone, will be the meeting with the president and the prime minister of Azad Kashmir.
“We will aim to establish a common minimum programme between the two sides of the divided region,” the Mirwaiz said.
One obvious point of discussion will be the transport services between the two sides.
The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service needs so many papers to be cleared from both sides that people prefer to fly.
“Given a choice we would have preferred to go toe Muzaffarabad by bus that runs there from Srinagar. But the paper work required for that is too tedious.”
The Mirwaiz said on his return to New Delhi he expects to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who has already held a round of talks with Hurriyat representatives.
“There is some misunderstanding that we are trying to mediate between India and Pakistan. That’s wrong. We are a party to the dispute, and an involved party cannot be mediating.”
The delegation expects to visit Islamabad and Muzaffarabad officially. A private visit to Karachi is also being considered.
Qudssia Akhlaque from Islamabad adds: The visit takes place on the heels of Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s first trip to Pakistan during which the issue of Jammu and Kashmir was extensively discussed.
The delegation is scheduled to arrive in Lahore on Thursday night and will travel to Islamabad the following day where it will hold talks with President Gen Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and key political leaders.
The Kashmiri leaders will proceed to Muzaffarabad where they will meet AJK President Raja Zulqarnain Khan and AJK Prime Minister Sardar Atiq Ahmad Khan.
The attack on Mr Farooq’s residence was widely seen as an attempt to dissuade him from undertaking the visit.
The APHC chairman said that the people opposed to a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir problem were behind the attack and made it clear that he would not be deterred by such threats.
