After an extended lull, the season of conferences on Kashmir has returned. Close on the heels of the intra-Kashmir conference of leaders and civil society groups from both parts of Kashmir held recently in Srinagar, the All Parties Kashmir Coordination Committee (APKCC), a political grouping of various separatist parties in UK, is oraganising a similar conference in London on October 24.

But unlike the one in Srinagar, the conference in London is strictly a separatist affair with Hurriyat chairmen Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Geelani and JKLF chief Yasin Malik expected to attend. Kashmir Times editor-in-chief Ved Bhasin and Kashmir High Court Bar Association president Mian Abdul Qayoom have also been invited. Pandit leaders have also been invited to “talk about their position on Kashmir”.

“Representatives of the Kashmiri Pandit community will reflect on the challenges facing present day Kashmir,” APKCC president, Mohammad Ghalib said. “This conference will set in motion a process of consultation among leaders of Kashmir which has remained a disputed territory between Pakistan and India since 1947.”

Geelani is reportedly in Delhi to get a British visa for the conference. If he is granted a visa, it will be the first time in the past two decades ago that Geelani will be attending any conference abroad. Geelani could not travel earlier as the government had withheld his passport. However, the government recently released his passport to allow him to visit his ailing son in Pakistan. Geelani did not go.

UK-based Kashmir National Party has announced a one-day conference on Kashmir in Watford, northwest of London. Pakistan has already invited the Kashmiri separatist leadership and leaders of the Kashmir Centres in Washington, London and Brussels to Islamabad for “consultation on the way forward” on Kashmir.  

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