Days after Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri talked of substantive progress on Kashmir talks with India, Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has told The Indian Express that contours of the agreement will be made public in September this year. He has said it is the “immediate prospect” of a solution on Kashmir, which has persuaded mainstream political parties in Kashmir to demand demilitarisation and self-rule for the state rather than a change of heart.

“I think the agenda is pretty much set as far as Kashmir is concerned. It is September, 2007, that India and Pakistan are looking at, in terms of announcing something on Kashmir,” Mirwaiz told The Indian Express in an interview on Monday. “I would say that India and Pakistan are putting in a lot of efforts on how things should move on Kashmir. I don’t think there is anybody dictating the agenda. India and Pakistan have realised that they have to resolve the dispute. The feedback that we are getting is that things are on the right track.”

In an interview to Pakistani daily The Nation, Kasuri had said the two countries had covered a lot of ground on Kashmir. “The two countries are moving towards a settlement of the Kashmir issue that might not be the first best choice for all the three parties (India , Pakistan and the Kashmiris) but it could be the second best,” he was quoted as saying by The Nation on Friday.

Echoing Kasuri, Mirwaiz said distinct signals about an imminent breakthrough on Kashmir were responsible for transforming the political debate on Kashmir in the recent past. “It is not that slogans of demilitarisation and self-rule have suddenly come into vogue in a vacuum. They fall neatly into the new context set by the Indo-Pak dialogue process and the dynamics generated by it,” Mirwaiz said.

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