Hope for Kashmir as talks begin

India's minister is to hold talks today with Indian Kashmiri separatists amid what analysts say are brightening hopes of a settlement in the decades-old dispute over the future of the region.

The talks, to be held in New Delhi at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's invitation, are slated ahead of a meeting between him and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this month in New York, where Kashmir will be a key topic.

Discussions the moderate wing of Kashmir's main separatist alliance Hurriyat (Freedom), will mark a resumption of a dialogue with New Delhi that stalled after the election of the Congress-led national coalition in May last year.

The dispute "can't be solved by guns and violence," said Kashmir's chief Muslim cleric, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, 32, a tech-savvy preacher who will lead the alliance in the talks.

"We believe the time has come when we need to talk to bring about a solution," he said in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir where an Islamic insurgency against New Delhi's rule has raged for 16 years.

Analysts against expecting any dramatic breakthrough in the meeting with Hurriyat, formed 12 years ago as a political front for Kashmiri separatists. But they say they are hopeful progress will be made after two earlier rounds with the previous Hindu nationalist government ended inconclusively.

They cite much-improved relations between India and Pakistan which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, and a trip by the moderate separatists to Pakistan three months ago during which they met Musharraf.

"These talks are linked with what is going on between India and Pakistan," said Tahir Mohiudin, editor of The Rock, an Urdu weekly. "I think at the grassroots level many things have already been discussed and decided."

The separatists, who have always sought a voice in settling the dispute over Kashmir, had been excluded from a peace process which began in early 2004 between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

But now the moderates are being consulted in the dialogue over the future of the Muslim-majority region, split between the countries but claimed by both.

"Talks with India are part of an ongoing process. It's part of a triangular process," Farooq said, referring to India's holding talks with Pakistan while the separatists talk separately to both India and Pakistan.

"It's a step-by-step approach," said Farooq.

India, however, still says any final solution can only be reached bilaterally with Pakistan and has consistently said there can be no redrawing of boundaries.

"A fresh wind is filling the sails of the Kashmir peace process," said political analyst Prem Shankar Jha, a columnist in leading news magazine Outlook.

"The dialogue between Pakistan and India has reached a point where both countries recognise a Kashmiri input is essential to take it forward."

Pakistan's Times, seen as a reflecting the government viewpoint, welcomed the talks in an editorial, saying Singh's invitation to Hurriyat last week was a "good move."

At the same time, it warned New Delhi that "if it is not seen as conceding `something' to the moderates, its obduracy will only strengthen the hands of hardliners" who oppose talks with New Delhi and have formed a splinter group.

Analysts a 25 percent fall in violent incidents in Kashmir this year may open the door for a drop in Indian troop levels in the region. Separatists say Kashmiris would see such a move as a sign New Delhi is serious about seeking a settlement.

The hardline Hurriyat members want Kashmir to be folded into Pakistan and say they detect a softening line on Kashmir by Islamabad. Most of the moderates say they want an independent Kashmir but talk increasingly of borders "becoming blurred."