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UN turns down Hurriyat request
for audience with Annan

Hurriyat Conference had made a request at the United Nations office and Ministry of External Affairs to meet Annan during his three-day stay in the country.

Hurriyat sources said their request had been turned down by the UN office in New Delhi.

Confirming this, a Hurriyat spokesman said, "The UN office had said the Secretary General was having a tight schedule and could not accommodate the request."

The turning down of the request is likely to go down well with the Jammu and Kashmir government as Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has been dismissive of the conglomerate's claim saying, "They (Hurriyat) are only building castles in the air."

While in the Pakistan leg of his South Asia visit, Annan had ruled out implementation of the UN resolutions on Kashmir or a separate UN human rights commission for Kashmir saying a lasting solution to the problem lay in implementation of the Lahore Declaration.

Perturbed over Annan's statement, Hurriyat Conference chairman Abdul Ghani Butt had earlier said the Hurriyat executive would go into the depth of the statement and see the 'intentions' behind it.

Senior Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq had said, "Such statements give a hint that the UN is shirking its commitments made to Kashmiris."

Fire-brand Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had reacted more severely saying it was 'the moral obligation of the UN to resolve the longstanding problem and use its influence to force a solution to the problem between the two concerned countries'.

The Hurriyat's Executive Council met on Monday to discuss Annan's statement ruling out implementation of UN resolutions for resolving the Kashmir issue and deputed Lone to seek a meeting with the Secretary General during his stay in New Delhi.

However, even before Lone reach the capital on Friday evening, the request had been turned down.

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