Wednesday, August 31 2005 14:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has invited Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and other leaders for talks here on September five.

This will be the first interaction between the moderate separatist group and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) dispensation as part of the dialogue process.

"The Prime Minister has invited Hurriyat Chairman and other leaders for talks," the Prime Minister's Media Adviser Sanjaya Baru said.

Singh has been maintaining that he was ready to hold talks with any group that eschewed violence. The PMO has been in touch with the Kashmiri leaders through various interlocutors for quite some time now.

The Hurriyat had held two rounds of talks with the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government in 2004.

The Prime Minister's talks with Hurriyat will take place ahead of his meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on September 14 in New York on the sidelines of UN General Assembly.

A Congress leader from Jammu and Kashmir is also understood to have played a role in bringing the two sides together, sources said.

Hurriyat leaders, after their 15-day visit to Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), had expressed a desire to meet the Prime Minister.