Kashmiri separatists to shun Indian interlocutor

Kashmiri separatist leaders on Tuesday said they won't have any talks with the Indian government's interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir, calling his appointment "a new tactic" by New Delhi.

The Joint Resistance leadership (JRl), a conglomerate of senior separatist leaders, rejected any possibility of engaging in parleys with former Intelligence Bureau chief Dineshwar Sharma.

The statement was issued by JRl leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik.

"To be part of this so-called dialogue process would be a futile exercise for any Kashmiri since this new tactic has been adopted by the Indian government after its failure to crush the aspirations of the freedom loving people through military repression," they said.

The statement added: "In principle we have always advocated and supported sincere and productive dialogue as a means to resolve the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Our stand on dialogue requires the basic acknowledgment that there is a dispute that has to be resolved.

"The Indian government has continuously refused to accept this basic premise and the reality on the ground."

Reacting to the opposition to Congress leader P. Chidambaram's demand for greater autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir, the statement said: "Even the assertion by their own leaders on restoration of autonomy to the state has been rejected by the Indian government although the same is guaranteed by their own constitution."

The leaders took strong exception to Sharma's statement that Jammu and Kashmir has to be saved from becoming another Syria.

The statement said: "To compare the internationally recognized 70-year-old political and humanitarian issue of Kashmir to that of the sectarian war and power struggle in Syria is deception and propaganda as there is no relation between the two situations."