Thaindian News

Jammu, Feb 23 (IANS) The government-appointed interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir will submit in two weeks the “initial document” spelling out the contours for a political settlement of the Kashmir issue.”We will submit our initial document on the contours of the political settlement of Kashmir in the next two weeks,” journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, who heads the three-member team, told reporters Wednesday.

Padgaonkar and his two colleagues, academician Radha Kumar and economist M.M. Ansari, leave for Srinagar Wednesday afternoon. This is their fifth visit to the state since they were appointed by the central government last October.

The interolocutors, who have spoken to a cross-section of people in the state, have got sufficient inputs to draw the “contours of the political settlement”, Padgaonkar said.

Undeterred by the initial rejection of their talks offer by the separatists, the chief interlocutor said that they were ” willing to meet the separatists at any time at any place”.

The separatists have so far not responded to their invitation for talks.

The interlocutors had sent formal invitations to separatist leaders, particularly Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah.

Supporters of Geelani, who heads the hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference, have said the matter would be discussed once their leader returns from New Delhi.

The hardline separatist leader has been asked by Delhi Police not to leave the national capital as he is to be quizzed in a money laundering case.

The interlocutors were appointed after the summer unrest in the Kashmir Valley in which over 100 people were killed.