Hurriyat leaders were placed under house arrest on Thursday but Indian government official confirmed that the government would not call off next week’s talks with National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz despite his plans to meet Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi, according to Indian media.
According to sources, invitations were sent to key Hurriyat leaders, including chairperson Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, for a reception hosted by the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.
Although the move could have changed the fate of talks between the two sides scheduled for August 23, Indian government official confirmed that the government has decided to go ahead with the talks and without elaborating, have said that it has a ‘surprise’ for Pakistan in the talks.
On Sunday, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is to conference with Aziz during which the agenda will be focused heavily on countering terror.
Earlier this week, top civil and military leadership agreed to adopt an aggressive stance on terrorism related issues while finalising a strategy for the upcoming interaction. It was also agreed that a give-and-take approach on bilateral disputes would be used.
It was proposed that Aziz should take up the issue of the release of Samjhota Express incident’s mastermind, India’s involvement in Balochistan and Afghanistan and its violation of ceasefire at the Line of Control and the working boundary.
Further, the civil-military also agreed that the outcome of the NSA’s meeting should not be ambiguous or one-sided but rather they should send a clear message to all stakeholders.
The national security advisers’ meeting is part of the understanding reached between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit held in Ufa, Russia in July.
The fate of the meeting has been hanging in the balance due to tensions between the two nuclear armed neighbours in the aftermath of the Gurdaspur attack. India claimed the three gunmen who went on a killing spree in the district came from Pakistan after crossing River Ravi which Pakistan dismissed.
