Hurriyat group discusses meeting with Sartaj, Track II

The moderate Hurriyat group's executive committee headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq met here Monday to discuss whether or not the separatist conglomerate should engage in Track II diplomacy with New Delhi and Islamabad.

Senior separatist leaders, including Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, former chairman Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Gani Lone, Aga Hassan Badgami, Zafar Akbar Bhat, Javaid Mir and others, held discussions Monday at the uptown Rajbagh headquarters of the Hurriyat.

Although the leaders said there was nothing new about the Hurriyat executive meeting, sources said the executive committee discussed its leaders' recent meeting with Pakistan prime minister's security advisor Sartaj Aziz in New Delhi and other related issues.

Hurriyat spokesman Abdul Gani Bhat Sunday told a local news agency, "We want solution of K-issue (Kashmir) at any cost. We are at a stage where defined terms like UN resolutions, bilateral or trilateral talks, are immaterial."

"Why should we trouble ourselves with these defined terms? The important thing is mechanism and we would follow that mechanism which would lead us to the resolution of Kashmir issue," he added.