Hurriyat is willing to participate in the polls.

As mainstream parties in Kashmir gear up for the 2008 Assembly Elections, separatists outfits in the valley too seem mellowing their stance.

In an exclusive interview Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Mirwaiz Umer Farooq has hinted that the Hurriyat is willing to participate in the polls.

“If India and Pakistan are able to get people involved and some sort of an understanding is reached whether it is a four-point formula or whether its self governance and other ideas if they are accepted if they are addressed and even if an interim solution is discussed, Hurriyat has always said that we are never scared to go into elections.” Says

But at the moment, the Hurriyat plans to boycott the polls as usual.
“As far as the present structure is concerned there is no scope for the Hurriyat in it,” says Farooq. And it is after a long silence the Hurriyat Conference has pitched in with an idea.
“Certainly constitutionally and legally we can have a position as it existed before 1953, I have no doubt in my mind,” says Constitutional Expert, Zafar Sha
.
Hurriyat points out that the state already enjoys a special status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution.

Courtesy:ibnlive.com
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