New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) In a bid to defuse the volatile situation in the Kashmir Valley, the central government plans to soon hold talks with leaders of various political parties and separatist groups, official sources said here Wednesday.
“While the plan for the talks have been accepted in principle, the details are yet to be finalised,” an official source told IANS.

“There are even suggestions that the talks be in (Kashmir’s summer capital) Srinagar.”

Home Minister P. Chidambaram will participate in the talks and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be monitoring the parleys, the source added.

Manmohan Singh had called a special session of the Cabinet Committee on Security as violence paralysed Kashmir for more than a month.

The plan for talks comes on the heels of the coordinated efforts by the state and central governments to restore normalcy in the Valley, where at least 14 civilians, mostly teenagers and youth, were allegedly killed by security forces during stone pelting protests.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had held talks with Chidambaram here July 17 and apprised him of the latest situation in the Valley.

Earlier, Abdullah had demanded the centre hold consultations with all “shades of opinion”.

The main opposition party in Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had boycotted the recent all-party meeting called in Srinagar by the chief minister.

Alleging that “Abdullah was the cause and not the solution for the situation”, Mufti had demanded “wider talks”.

Government sources said the central government would prefer to hold separate talks with delegations of each group rather than an all-party meeting.

Delegations of all recognised parties, minority groups like Kashmiri Pandits and Bhuddhists and other groups including the pro-separatist Hurriyat Conference will be invited, sources said.

Ravinder Sharma, spokesperson of the Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Congress, told IANS over phone that the “UPA leader Sonia Gandhi and the central government was always keen to take initiative for talks for peace”.

Communist Party of India-Marxist legislator Muhammed Yusuf Tarigami said his party had been advocating “meaningful talks”.

PDP sources said that the party leadership will meet before any decision on the participation.

However, indications are that the party would not be averse to the talks “not convened by Abdullah”.

Hurriyat Conference sources said the decision would be “taken collectively”.

But the separatist amalgam is likely to press some demands like withdrawal of the army and security forces from urban areas and the release of recently arrested youth as pre-condition for any interaction with Delhi, sources told IANS.