New Delhi:The Pakistani High Commission has invited Kashmiri separatist leaders for a meeting ahead of talks between India’s national security advisor with his Pakistani counterpart. The separatist leaders accepted the invite on Wednesday.
Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani will meet Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit, a Hurriyat leader said.
“We accepted the invite from the Pakistan high commission,” Ayaz Akbar, spokesperson for Geelani’s Huriyat Conference, told IANS over telephone from Srinagar.
The Pakistani mission invited the separatist leaders for talks with Sartaj Aziz, advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on national security, before he holds talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.
“We have invited separatist leaders in Kashmir for the reception party to Sartaj Aziz,” Aisha Ahsan, political counsellor at the Pakistan high commission, told IANS.
Both factions of the Hurriyat Conference headed by Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as well as other separatist leaders such as Yasin Malik and Naeem Khan have been invited to meet Abdul Basit on August 23.
“The Pakistan envoy wants us (Geelani and his party leaders) to meet Sartaj Aziz before talks with India,” Akbar told IANS.
Aziz is scheduled to reach here for talks with Doval on August 23.
Mirwaiz Farooq’s spokesperson Shahid-Ul-Islam confirmed the invite and said: “We have been invited for the reception of Sartaj Aziz on the day of NSA talks. But we are yet to take a decision.”
In September 2014, India called off the foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan as Islamabad invited the separatist leaders for talks.