All-party team

NEW DELHI: Decks appeared to clear on Saturday for a meeting between Kashmiri separatists and members of an all-party delegation scheduled to visit Srinagar early next month.

The Centre and the state government have agreed no member of the delegation will be stopped from engaging with the separatists, sources said after a meeting between PM Narendra Modi and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Talks with separatists might help restore normality in Kashmir, where 70 people have been killed in street protests against the gunning down of militant commander Burhan Wani by security forces last month. The region has been under curfew for a record 50 days. “The meeting with PM was a confidence boosting measure for Mehbooba…” a senior government official with knowledge of the meeting said on the condition of anonymity. This was Mehbooba’s first meeting with Modi since trouble started in Kashmir.

Mehbooba exhorted the separatists to help her government end the violence, which she said was being incited by Pakistan. Her party, PDP, later urged separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani to treat her as his daughter and give her “the opportunity she deserves”.

PDP sources said Mehbooba suggested to Modi a “threepronged action plan”, including involving separatists and Pakistan in substantive talks. She also asked for “an institutional mechanism of interlocutors” to talk to all stakeholders

in Kashmir.

In 2010, a meeting between an all-party team and separatists helped restore calm after similar street protests. The then UPA government also sent interlocutors to Kashmir but their recommendations have gathered dust.