This Article is From Sep 02, 2015

Kashmiri Separatist Geelani Sends Secret Letter to Nawaz Sharif

Kashmiri Separatist Geelani Sends Secret Letter to Nawaz Sharif

Pakistan cancelled the talks after India clearly said that it would not allow a meeting with Kashmiri separatist leaders and talks will only focus on terrorism.

New Delhi: A three-member delegation from the Hurriyat Conference belonging to the Syed Ali Shah Geelani faction met Pakistani envoy Abdul Basit on Tuesday, and handed over a confidential letter for Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

"We handed over Geelani sahab's letter for PM Sharif to the officials at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi," Ayaz Akbar, spokesperson for the Hurriyat Conference, said today.

Geelani's top aides, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, and Altaf Ahmad met Mr Basit at his office and spent over an hour with the envoy.

"The letter is confidential but highly important... Officials at the high commission assured us that the letter will be dispatched to the Pakistan prime minister on Wednesday," Mr Akbar told IANS.

This meeting was the first after separatist members met the Pakistani envoy after the National Security Adviser (NSA)-level talks in New Delhi were called off by Pakistan.

Geelani was scheduled to have a one-on-one conversation with Pakistan's NSA Sartaj Aziz during his visit to India last month, but the talks were called off.

Pakistan cancelled the talks after India clearly said that it would not allow a meeting with Kashmiri separatist leaders and talks will only focus on terrorism.

The NSA level talks were expected to take the process of restarting the peace dialogue between the two countries forward, but the agenda agreed on was terror, which was scuttled after Pakistan insisted on raising Kashmir and meeting the separatist leaders.
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