May 22, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429

NEW DELHI, May 21: Kashmir’s resistance leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq urged India and Pakistan on Wednesday to hold their future peace talks in Srinagar and Muzaffarabad with the involvement of the local leadership who he said should now stand united to help resolve the Kashmir dispute.

A large number of mourners had gathered at Srinagar’s main cemetery to observe the death anniversary of his father and also of the late Abdul Ghani Lone, both assassinated separately under mysterious circumstances.

Addressing the meeting, the Mirwaiz announced that a delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference would visit Islamabad in June. An invitation was extended recently by Pakistan’s new government, he told Dawn by phone from Srinagar.

But the APHC is a divided lot amid rumours that at least one of their senior leaders was planning to participate in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls due later this year, despite the fact that the group had so far shunned all Indian-sponsored elections.

To put up a show of unity during the Pakistan visit and perhaps also to plan a common strategy towards the polls as well as the India-Pakistan peace talks that began in Islamabad this week, the Mirwaiz urged all senior leaders of the APHC to return to the fold.

“We can have our differences of opinion about the methods and the best strategies to present our case, but our goals are the same,” he said.