Sunday, May 22 2005 08:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Srinagar: Hurriyat Conference leaders, who have been yearning to visit Pakistan, said they had received an invitation from the PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) Government and would be travelling by the recently launched Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service at a date to be decided shortly.

"We have been invited by the Government of Pakistan occupied Kashmir over telephone for a visit," Chairman of the moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umer Farooq told sources in Srinagar.

Confirming that his faction would undertake the journey, he said the Hurriyat would meet early next week to decide on the journey dates.

A formal invitation would also follow very soon, he added.

Sources in the hardline faction led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani said the faction had received a similar invitation to visit PoK on the same bus but Geelani himself denied having received the same.

Hurriyat leaders have been demanding for long that they be allowed to travel to Pakistan to hold talks with the leadership and militant groups there but their desire has so far not been fulfilled.

Several leaders in the Geelani faction have expressed their desire to the firebrand leader to make good of the opportunity by undertaking the journey as they feel they might be left out on important decisions to be taken in respect of Kashmir issue, the sources said.

The PoK authorities have invited leaders of both factions of Hurriyat Conference to Pakistan on June 2, the day fifth Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus is tentatively scheduled, the sources said.

They have made it clear that the visit had to take place in early June as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf would be away on foreign tours in the middle of the month, the sources said.