New Delhi: Dineshwar Sharma, the newly appointed interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir said he was positive about talks with all stakeholders over the Kashmir issue, even as Joint Resistance Leadership rejected the dialogue offer by New Delhi.

“I will go to Kashmir and see who all will come for talks. I am still very positive about the whole process,” Sharma, according to media reports said.

The interlocutor said that he will conduct talks with the youth as well and assured that “peace will return in Kashmir very soon.”

On October 24, the Home Ministry appointed Sharma as its representative for a “sustained dialogue with all stakeholders” to find a political solution to the Kashmir issue.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Dineshwar Sharma, 63, who retired as the Intelligence Bureau Director in December, will speak to “all stakeholders”, as well as decide on whether to talk to the hard line separatist group, the Hurriyat Conference.

Notably, on Tuesday, JRL refused to agree to a dialogue, citing that the Centre does not understand the ground reality of Kashmir, which will negate the purpose of any such dialogue.

The JRL said that the peace and dialogue initiative by New Delhi is ‘a ploy to strike a hard bargain’.

JRL comprising of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik said that unless Kashmir dispute is understood and addressed in its historical context and in the background of international commitments made over it, lasting peace cannot be achieved in JK or the entire subcontinent.

“While the repressive state militaristic approach continues in dealing with Kashmir, to talk of peace and dialogue is also a ploy by GOI to strike a hard bargain which people of Kashmir and leadership will never succumb to,” JRL said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.

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