Hurriyat plea: Pant meets Vajpayee

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, JUNE 23. The Centre's interlocutor on Kashmir, Mr. K. C. Pant, met the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, this evening in an effort to formulate a response to the All-Party Hurriyat Conference's request for a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Pakistani President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. For the record, Mr. Pant refused to say if any decision was taken on the Hurriyat request.

However, it is believed that the Centre's response would be that the APHC should meet Mr. Pant before its request for an audience with the Prime Minister could be considered.

Since the Hurriyat chairman, Prof. Abdul Gani Bhat, took the precaution of making a similar request to Gen. Musharraf, the Centre finds itself having to observe diplomatic niceties. Perhaps the protocol experts in the Ministry of External Affairs would also be consulted before it is decided to respond formally, if at all, to the APHC communication.

The thinking, as of now, is that the Centre has already accorded a kind of special status to the Hurriyat and yet the separatist conglomerate has sought to appropriate for itself a larger-than- life role.

The similar letters to Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf are, again, seen as exercise in seeking a voice disproportionate to its known strengths and assets.

The Vajpayee Government's inclination is that the summit should not be allowed to be distracted by the Hurriyat's pretensions. Also, there is a confident judgment that the Pakistani side is also going to give short shrift to the Hurriyat crowd; the most that the Hurriyat leaders can expect is a handshake with Gen. Musharraf at the High Commissioner, Mr. Qazi's reception on July 14.

Mr. Pant apprised the Prime Minister of the thrust of the interactions he had been having with various political parties in New Delhi.

The Pant mission is also endowed with a brief to a domestic consensus on the nature of solution and concessions that can be proposed towards a restoration of normality and peace in Jammu and Kashmir.

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