SRINAGAR, India Indian officials were set to hold fresh talks on Saturday with the frontline Kashmiri separatist group following its truce aimed at paving the way for peace.
"Army officials and commanders of Hizbul-Mujahideen...will be meeting today. They will be working out modalities of the ceasefire," Fazal-Haq Qureshi, who has been acting as emissary between the two sides on the talks, told Reuters.
Speaking in Srinagar, summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir State, the chief of the People's Political Front Party (PPF) said his role as emissary had now ended. "My job was only to bring them to the table.".
Qureshi was quoted by Star News television as saying Hizbul could consider extending its August 8 deadline for India to agree to unconditional tripartite talks involving Pakistan as well, failing which the ceasefire would end.
India responded positively to the ceasefire offer from the pro-Pakistan Hizbul, but has not let its guard down on arch-foe Islamabad, whom it accuses of orchestrating a string of guerrilla groups waging a 10-year-old Muslim separatist rebellion.
The ceasefire offer from the estimated 3,500-militant strong Hizbul met with Kashmir's worst night of terror in the rebellion on Tuesday night, when guerrillas killed nearly 100 people in the troubled valley, including 22 Hindu pilgrims.
India has pointed to the Pakistan based Islamic group Lashkar-e-Taiba as being behind the attacks.
Pakistan, which has called for an investigation into the attacks, said on Friday it had no hand in the violence.
India is reluctant to talk to Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, and has been insisting on an end to what it calls cross-border terrorism for peace talks to revive.
(Reuter)