LAHORE, Jan 18: Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), on Thursday asked the political leadership of Pakistan and India to evolve a consensus on a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

"Now that the resolution of the Kashmir dispute seems to have entered a decisive phase, the APHC would like to involve political parties of the two countries to be part of the Pakistan-India composite dialogue. The conference will hold talks with political organisations on both sides of the political divide to lend their support to the dispute," the Mirwaiz said while talking to mediapersons on his arrival here at the head of a three-member APHC delegation.

Former APHC chairperson Abdul Ghani Bhat and Bilal Lone are also part of the delegation which arrived here from New Delhi for a week-long visit during which they are scheduled to call on President General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad and Azad Kashmir President Raja Zulqarnain Khan and Prime Minister Sardar Atiq Ahmad Khan in Muzaffarabad.

The Mirwaiz said that he would also meet the ruling party and the opposition leaders in Pakistan and take a similar initiative in India to provide political parties an opportunity to arrive on a consensus on the Kashmir issue.

The Mirwaiz supported President Musharraf's recent ideas, embodied in a four-point proposal, on an interim solution to the issue which, he said, was ‘positive in direction’.

He said the APHC wanted to go ahead with the proposal as it had the potential of working out a common plan for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute. But before that the APHC would hear from President Musharraf himself and would like him to take the APHC in confidence with the objective of establishing a common minimum programme by Islamabad and New Delhi.

The APHC leader said that India also seemed to have now adopted a 'positive' approach to the problem. New Delhi no longer wanted the status quo to persist and it was a welcome development, he added.

"We need to negotiate on New Delhi's proposals also so that they are put to implementation for the resolution of the long-standing dispute," he said, adding that a dialogue with India was more important than with Pakistan because the Kashmiris had a direct conflict with New Delhi.

"There are no two opinions on the fact that the only way to settle the dispute was a dialogue and we are prepared to extend a complete and unqualified cooperation to the two sides so that they are able to make meaningful progress to the cherished goal step-by-step," the Kashmiri leader said.

KASHMIRIS: He also pleaded with the two countries to ensure that the people of Kashmir also participated in the process of the settlement of the Kashmir dispute.