Positive response from Kashmiri leadership on talks offer: Chidambaram

India's Home Minister Chidambaram told the parliament on Wednesday that there were encouraging responses to the offer of talks on Kashmir issue.Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached out to Kashmiri leaders last month, offering to resume peace talks to end a decades-old insurgency in the Himalayan region.Kashmir's moderate and main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, has urged New Delhi to pull out troops, release prisoners and end human rights violations before resuming peace talks. Both the Prime Minister and I on behalf of the government have offered to talk to every shade of political opinion in Jammu and Kashmir, that includes the registered political parties, that includes another groups, that includes also groups which fall under the umbrella of Hurriyats (Freedom). When I had an opportunity to explain the scope of the talks, I said that these will be quiet talks, quiet diplomacy far away from the glare of the media. We stand by that statement and I can fully tell this house that there are encouraging responses to that statement. Beyond that sir if at this stage I am asked to disclose details, then it defeats the very purpose of holding quiet talks, Chidambaram told the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian parliament. The Indian Interior Minister Chidambaram also reiterated government's offer to hold talks with Maoist on the condition of their giving up violence. I repeat the policy of the government is we are willing to hold talks with the Naxalite (Maoists) groups, we are willing to facilitate talks between the state government concerned and the Naxalite group operating in that state, but the condition is that they should formally abjure violence, he said.