NEW DELHI, Nov 9: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, due in New Delhi on Monday, is expected to meet Jammu and Kashmir’s hardline pro-Pakistan leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani but a controversial rival said on Sunday that he would abstain from the widely anticipated encounter.

Pakistani officials said Mr Ahmed would arrive early Monday from Dubai aboard an Air India plane to attend a Saarc information ministers’ conference.

They said they were not aware of a reported letter from the Pakistani prime minister to his Indian counterpart that Mr Ahmed would deliver, although he is expected to meet the Indian leader with a cluster of other Saarc ministers.

Maulvi Abbas Ansari, who heads the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), told Dawn from Srinagar that he was unhappy over the invitation from the Pakistan High Commission to an annual Iftar on Nov 13 because it did not address him by his designation as APHC’s chairman, a claim disputed by Mr Geelani.

“If not as Hurriyat leader, they could have addressed me as the head of Majlis Ittehad ul Muslimeen, my party in Hurriyat,” he said on telephone. “As things stand it seems some people do not recongnize me as chairman of Hurriyat Conference.”

Mr Geelani of Kashmir’s Jamaat-i-Islami has been leading a rival APHC faction since he staged a “coup” against Maulvi Abbas in October when a meeting of the group’s general council expressed no confidence in the Maulvi’s leadership. They elected Mr Geelani instead.

Pakistani officials say they are not getting involved with the controversy as they see it as a matter for the Kashmiris to resolve. But Maulvi Abbas made it clear on Sunday that there was more to it than “masterly inaction” by Pakistan.

Maulvi Abbas is backed by Kashmir’s spiritual leader Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq. Maulvi Umar too said from Srinagar that he was unwell and therefore not likely to be able to visit New Delhi anytime soon.

Privately, Pakistani officials do admit that the offer by New Delhi to start talks after Eid between Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani with the APHC headed by Maulvi Abbas Ansari has posed an unexpected problem concerning, chiefly, Mr Geelani.

They said Mr Geelani was expected to meet Mr Ahmed on Nov 12, a day before the minister returns home, ahead of the iftar party, usually a veritable jamboree.