NEW DELHI, Sept 25: India will attach no conditions to peace talks with Kashmir's political separatists, the home minister said on Saturday, in an attempt to resume a dialogue stalled due to new terms set by New Delhi.
Mr Shivraj Patil's comments came a day after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held his first face-to-face talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in New York to push forward a peace process that was getting stuck over Kashmir.
"We attach great importance to our discussions with Hurriyat ... we have said that we will talk unconditionally," Mr Patil said in an interview to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
"Let them say whatever they want to say, we will say whatever we have to say and we will find out on what topics we can agree," he said.
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), an umbrella alliance of two dozen Kashmiri political groups, began unprecedented talks with the Hindu nationalist-led government in New Delhi earlier this year to help end the Kashmir revolt.
But the talks appeared to have broken down last month after Singh's centrist Congress party-led government, which took power in May, insisted they be held within the constitution, which says Kashmir is an integral part of India.
That position is not acceptable to the APHC and alliance leaders rejected it saying it prejudiced their demands for independence or merger with Pakistan.
Mr Patil told PTI a formal invitation would be sent to Hurriyat leaders when he visits Kashmir next month and added that he would be "happy to meet them" during the visit.
There was no immediate comment from Hurriyat to the change in New Delhi's position.
Mr Patil's announcement coincided with a new hope in South Asia following the Singhh-Musharraf talks in New York Their meeting produced no apparent breakthroughs but there was considerable upbeat rhetoric as the two leaders said they had made a fresh start towards ending decades of enmity.
MUFTI HOPEFUL: Talks between the leaders of India and Pakistan have raised hopes of peace in Kashmir, the chief minister of the held Kashmir said.
Mufti Mohammad Syed's comments came a day after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held his first face-to-face talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in New York and the two leaders said they had made a fresh start towards ending decades of enmity.
"The chief minister said that the meeting has generated optimism and hope of a lasting peace in the subcontinent (and is) bound to have positive impact on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir," a statement said from Calcutta where Syed is visiting.
"He said the announcement by the two sides to explore possible options for a negotiated peaceful settlement of the Kashmir problem was a major step in the process of normalisation," it said.
Mr Syed hailed the positive spirit shown by Singh and Musharraf and said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir state would benefit greatly. But the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee launched a fresh bid to make peace with Pakistan when the party was in power last year, criticized the outcome of the Singh-Musharraf meeting.-Reuters