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Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah leaves for Delhi to meet Pak NSA

by IBNS 22 Aug 2015, 08:49 am

New Delhi, Aug 22 (IBNS) Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah left for Delhi from Srinagar on Saturday for talks with Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaz Aziz as Sunday's NSA-level dialogues between India and Pakistan hangs in a precarious balance.

Reports said Shabbir Shah and his supporters are likely to be detained at Delhi airport as the India government has been deadly opposed to the separatists being  invited by Pakistan ahead of the NSA meeting.

India says Pakistan has sprung a surprise by invoking two last-minute conditions - adding Kashmir to the agenda of the discussion, and insisting that separatists from the state will meet with, Sartaj Aziz. 

India says these were not part of the agenda Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif agreed upon in Russia's Ufa last month and the separatists are an unacceptable "third party."

But Pakistan has refused to call off the invite to the separatists while insisting that it is India which wants to go back on a decision for a comprehensive dialogue mutually agreed upon between the two Prime Ministers.

On Thursday morning, three Kashmiri separatists were placed under house arrest in Srinagar but were released within two hours. 

The government wanted to send a message that  "the separatists cannot be a third party to talks," and they can be detained if they try to meet the Pakistani delegation.

The separatists, Yasin Malik, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, have been invited to a reception in Delhi for Pakistan National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz, who will hold talks with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.

India called off talks last July after Pakistan consulted Kashmiri separatists before a meeting of Foreign Secretaries. 

However, the thaw was broken a year later when  Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif met on the sidelines of a conference in Ufa, Russia, and agreed to restart dialogues.