Srinagar/Dec/5: Delhi’s “special representative” for Kashmir talks Dineshwar Sharma has met senior Hurriyat leader Abdul
According to a report in Economic Times, the former Intelligence Bureau head Sharma drove to the residence-cum-office of Abdul Gani Bhat in WazirBagh Srinagar on November 27 around 10:30 pm in Srinagar where another Hurriyat leader was present during the meeting, which went on for around an hour.
The meeting assumes significance as the joint Hurriyat leadership led by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik have stayed away from the dialogue initiative, claiming the exercise was a ‘waste of time’, and questioned the sincerity of New Delhi.
When the newspaper asked about the meeting, Bhat refused to talk about his engagement with Sharma, but quickly added that his party – the Muslim Conference — was principally in favour of dialogue and “open to meet anybody who seeks a dialogue on Kashmir, including Sharma”.
“Our doors are open for dialogue. Why shouldn’t we talk to people? We do it with pressmen. We do it sometimes with members of a delegation. We did it with Yashwant Sinha? Why not with some other people who come to see us? We feel that till the time Pakistan is not involved, there will be no breakthrough,” Bhat had told the newspaper.
