Accusing Islamabad of taking a U-turn on the Kashmir issue, the hardline Hurriyat faction headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Tuesday turned down a proposal to meet Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who is in Delhi to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit.
Only the moderate faction of Hurriyat led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and a three-member delegation headed by Shabir Shah will meet Aziz on Wednesday evening before his departure for home.
According to the hardliners, Pakistan had failed in its duty towards Kashmiris and it had not addressed the concerns raised by them during their meeting with Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri earlier this year.
Overtures by the Pakistan High Commission were repeatedly spurned by leaders of Geelani's Hurriyat faction. Their leader is admitted in Mumbai's Tata Memorial Institute, where he is being treated for kidney cancer.
"We do not want to go for a photo session or for having lunch or dinner. These meetings have proved futile in the past and we don't have any expectations in future," senior hardline Hurriyat Conference leader G N Sumji told PTI on phone from Kashmir.
He said Pakistan has played with the sentiments of the people and made a complete U-turn on the Kashmir issue.
In his meeting with Kasuri in February 2007, Geelani had asked Islamabad to lay off Kashmir if it could not support it any further.
