NEW DELHI (AFP) -- Indian Premier Manmohan Singh will hold a roundtable conference with Kashmiri leaders and separatists in a fresh bid to resolve the decades-old dispute over the region, his office said Wednesday.

"The prime minister is going to hold a roundtable conference with Kashmir leaders," an official from Singh's office said, but declined to elaborate.

A list of around 50 people, including representatives of main Kashmiri political parties and separatist organizations, had been drawn up for invitation to the talks, the Hindustan Times said, quoting government sources.

No specific agenda had been drawn up for the meeting, to be held on February 24 in the Indian capital.

The paper said the meeting would mark the first time Kashmiri political leaders, separatists and the Indian government would sit at the same table since the outbreak of an anti-Indian Islamic insurgency in Kashmir in 1989, the paper said. "The PM wants to hear from all the participants with an open mind," it quoted a government source as saying. "He is keen to seek cooperation from all the invitees for a return to normalcy."

Singh is scheduled to meet with pro-independence separatist leader Yasin Malik this Friday and last month held talks with another separatist, Saajad Lone.

The series of talks follow Singh's decision to meet with all leaders and separatists from the Indian-administered zone of Kashmir, where some 44,000 lives have been lost since the start of the insurgency.

India accuses Pakistan of helping the insurgency in Kashmir, which has triggered two of their three wars since 1947.

Pakistan denies the charge but admits extending moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris waging what it terms a "freedom struggle".

India and Pakistan both claim the scenic Himalayan region in its entirety but administer it in part.

Kashmiri separatists -- whose demands range from independence to merger with Pakistan -- have been demanding tripartite talks involving India, Pakistan and the "true representatives" of the Kashmiri people.

In September, Singh held his first direct talks with a moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the main umbrella body grouping the Kashmiri separatists.

The talks followed a visit by some of its members to Pakistan in June.

The moderates held two rounds of talks with the previous Hindu nationalist government in 2004 on the future of Kashmir, but a hardline splinter group rejected any dialogue with New Delhi.