Kashmiri rebels want peace road map

The talks between the moderate wing of the Hurriyat separatist alliance, led by Kashmir's chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Singh will mark a resumption of a dialogue stalled since the Congress government's election in May 2004.

"Of course this (peace effort) is a long-drawn process," Farooq said before leaving Sunday for the talks in New Delhi.

The Hurriyat wanted "something concrete" to result from the discussions, he said in Srinagar, summer capital of mainly Muslim Indian Kashmir where a bloody insurgency against New Delhi's rule has raged for 16 years.

"We don't want a photo session. We want a well-drawn road map," Farooq, 32, said at his heavily guarded home where his father was slain in 1990 by unknown gunmen.

Farooq and a team from the Hurriyat arrived later Sunday in New Delhi ahead of the meeting.

He welcomed improving ties between India and Pakistan, which each hold the scenic Himalayan region of Kashmir in part and claim it in full, but said New Delhi must give Kashmiris "the feeling it's addressing their problems."

The Hurriyat talks are part of a wider peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.

Farooq said most of the confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan had not changed Kashmiris' lives, apart from the launch of a bus linking the two sides of the divided region.

"There are still bunkers. People are still subject to humiliating searches" by soldiers, said Farooq who was a teenager when he took over the hereditary post of head cleric of Kashmir's largest mosque after his father's killing.

Noting a 25 percent drop in violent incidents this year, he said, "Why not cut down on the number of troops" in Kashmir?"