MUZAFFARABAD, March 27: Former AJK prime minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum extended the other day good wishes to the Maulana Abbas Ansari-led faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference for its second round of peace talks with India.

"I wish you best of luck and advise you to go ahead with your exercise," the veteran leader told former APHC chairman Abdul Gani Bhat on telephone from here.

Sardar Qayyum, who was in Muzaffarabad in connection with efforts to resolve the crisis in the Muslim Conference, called Mr Bhat in New Delhi in the middle of his informal chat with some reporters at the state guest house.

He was told by his staff that Mr Bhat had rung at his Rawalpindi residence earlier in the day to offer condolences on the death of his wife.

"I wish your dialogue (with India) should continue and that something positive should emerge out of it," Sardar Qayyum told Mr Bhat.

India's deputy prime minister L. K. Advani and Hurriyat's moderate faction led by Maulana Ansari started a dialogue in January, last, the first between the two sides since the beginning of armed struggle against the Indian occupation in 1989.

Sardar Qayyum later told reporters that Mr Bhat had informed him that their first round of talks with Mr Advani was encouraging.