ISLAMABAD, June 5: Optimism about an early solution of the Kashmir problem seemed creeping in as moderate APHC leaders on Sunday began consultations with the Pakistani leadership about how to get a place on the conference table with India and Pakistan.

Pakistan Muslim League (PML) president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain voiced his hope that the problem would be settled within the present tenure of President Pervez Musharraf’s government.

However, Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat, a senior leader of the umbrella All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), put the probable solution time at two years.

The occasion was the first interaction between the visiting nine-man delegation of resistance leaders from the occupied Kashmir led by moderate APHC faction’s chairman Mirwaiz Omar Farooq at a lunch hosted by the PML president, which was to be followed by their meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Mr Farooq and four other members of his delegation, who spoke on the occasion, pressed for Pakistan’s help to make them a party to the ongoing peace process between Islamabad and New Delhi.

“In the present situation...we will try to solve the Kashmir problem within the tenure of the present government,” Chaudhry Shujaat said in his remarks as he also voiced his abhorrence about playing politics at the cost of Kashmiri people’s sufferings.

This marked a slight change from his remark to reporters on Thursday — when he welcomed the Kashmiri delegation at Chakothi checkpoint on the Line of Control— that the issue could be settled within one year.

Mr Bhat, who seemed to be more struck by Mr Shujaat’s earlier remark, said at the end of an eloquent English-language speech that he would like to add another year to the estimate and added: “In a couple of years, we will be able to find a solution of the Kashmir problem.”

However, young Mirwaiz Farooq and his other colleagues pointed to the absence of Kashmiris from the dialogue as the main obstacle and said they would discuss a strategy as to how to be involved in the process in planned talks with President Musharraf on his return from his trip to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

“There could be some doubts and reservations, but they all would be addressed once the dialogue process starts,” Mr Farooq said without elaborating.

He said a strong Pakistan would be guarantee for Kashmiris’ success and added: “We want to go back with the confidence that the whole Pakistani nation supports Kashmiris’ struggle and will help them in the present situation so that their participation (in the dialogue) becomes a certainty.”