Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called a conference of Kashmiri politicians and separatist leaders this month to help boost a peace process in the region, his spokesman said on Wednesday. The Feb. 24 conference, the first of its kind, would be held in the Indian capital and aims to broaden the dialogue in the region where New Delhi has so far held one-on-one talks with political separatist groups. "The Centre (federal government) has made it clear that it would hold talks with a cross-section of political leaders from the state," spokesman Sanjaya Baru said in a statement quoted by Reuters. The conference was likely to be attended by separatist groups as well as mainstream political parties in the state, he said. Singh held talks with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Kashmir's main, moderate political separatist alliance, last September but the dialogue made little progress. He has also met other, less prominent separatist politicians and is due to hold talks with Yasin Malik, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, on Friday.
