Kathmandu: Leaders from Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) today (Dec 13, 2004) met in Kathmandu for the first time and favoured more frequent people-to-people contact to resolve the Kashmir issue.

Former Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who along with moderate leader Abdul Gani Bhat, attended the two-hour-long meeting, said that such form of interactions should increase and similar meetings should be held in Muzzaffarabad, Srinagar and Jammu.

The former Prime Minister of PoK Sultan Mahmud, Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference president Atiq Ahmed and chairman JK Liberation League Majid Malik represented the PoK side at the meeting, held on the sidelines of a conference on Kashmir being organised by a US-based think-tank Pugwash.

"This was a very good meeting and a good beginning as the New Year is approaching. We hope that 2005 will usher in a new dawn of peace in South Asia," Farooq said.

He said that the meeting gave an opportunity to the leadership from both sides of Kashmir to express their views in finding a peaceful and amicable resolution to the Kashmir issue.

"All the participants were of the firm opinion that dialogue was the only way to resolve the Kashmir issue," the former Hurriyat chairman said.

"Both India and Pakistan should now ensure that no one is allowed to create hurdles or any kind of impediments in ensuring peaceful resolution to the Kashmir issue," he said.

The approach of New Delhi and Islamabad came in for a special praise as the Governments of both the countries had played a positive role in ensuring that the conference went off smoothly, he added.

Pro-Pakistan hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who has formed his own Hurriyat Conference, stayed away from the meet being held in the Himalayan kingdom.

Though Geelani has claimed that he had to undergo medical treatment, sources said that he had decided to keep away from the conference because of his hawkish stance.

Setting the records staight, Pugwash yesterday (Dec 12, 2004) said that Geelani's non-participation was his own decision and that neither Nepal nor Indian Government had stopped him.

Among others who attended the meet include Sajjad Lone (Peoples Conference), Abdul Rasheed Shaheen (National Conference), Vice Chancellor of Jammu University Amitabha Mattoo, Panthers Party Chief Bhim Singh, Ghulam Rasool Dar of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front) and Ghulam Mohammed Baba (Professor of Political Science in Kashmir University).

The Conference is being held with a view to improve communication between the two countries under Track II diplomacy.