NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
"Fighting assembly elections cannot resolve the Kashmir issue, which has been hanging fire for the last so many decades," Hurriyat chairman Abdul Gani Bhat told a nine-member Delhi-based team of International Centre for Peace Initiative, led by Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Tushar Gandhi.
"The solution to the Kashmir issue lies in admitting ground realities and acceptance of people's will, wishes and aspirations," he told the team.
"However, Hurriyat is ready to fight the elections if held under the supervision of United Nations observers," Bhat said.
Earlier in June, senior leader Abdul Ghani Lone had told workers of his People's Conference at Batmaloo in Srinagar, "The conglomerate is ready to contest polls under international supervision to prove its representative character and to clear misunderstandings of those doubting its following."
Speculation was rife in Srinagar that the team would persuade the Hurriyat Conference to change its stand and contest assembly polls.
Senior Hurriyat Conference leader Mohammad Abbas Ansari, who had a separate meeting with the peace activists, said the amalgam's stand was clear that it would not fight any elections other than those held under UN supervision.
He told the team that Hurriyat had lost faith in elections after the 1987 exercise that led to eruption of militancy in the state.
Ansari said he told the peace activists that the need of the hour was to strengthen the hands of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf to enable them overcome 'certain powers bent upon frustrating every attempt by the two neighbours to resolve the Kashmir issue'.
Without naming the 'powers', he said Hurriyat wanted peaceful resolution of the issue.
EARLIER REPORT: Hurriyat ready to contest polls
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