ISLAMABAD: One of the pioneers of rebel opposition to India in the disputed Kashmir region said on Thursday that talks between Pakistan and India would fail if they did not focus on the “core issue” of Kashmir.

India suspended a four-year-old peace process with Pakistan after an attack on the Indian city of Mumbai by militants in 2008.

India had been demanding action against the militants it says were behind the assault before a peace process could resume, but this month it offered to hold high-level talks despite little progress in Pakistan’s prosecution of seven suspects.

Syed Salahuddin, commander of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the biggest Kashmiri rebel group, said talks would be “a futile exercise” if they did not address the dispute over the Himalayan region, cause of two of the three wars between Pakistan and India since their independence in 1947.

The United States wants to see an improvement in ties between the nuclear-armed rivals to help stabilise Afghanistan where both are competing for influence.

An easing of tension would help Pakistan focus on its fight against al Qaeda-linked militants on the border with Afghanistan.

Indian officials say they have offered open-ended talks on all issues affecting peace and security, emphasising counter-terrorism. Pakistani media says India is reluctant to revive full-scale talks covering all problems, including Kashmir.

“I talk on behalf of the jihadi leadership, that we all stand for a negotiated settlement,” Salahuddin, who is also head of the United Jihad Council, a loose alliance of 13 guerrilla groups, told Reuters in an interview.

“But negotiations must be Kashmir-centric ... unless this core issue is addressed and it is focused upon, there will be no result.”

He said Kashmiris must also be involved in talks.

“It’s not a bilateral boundary dispute between India and Pakistan. It is question of the right of self-determination of 30 million people,” he said.

Both Pakistan and India claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in full but rule it in part.

India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan denies that, saying it only gives political support to what it calls a freedom movement.

Indian Defence Mininster A.K Antony told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday Pakistan was not tackling the militants.

“One thing is very clear, almost all the 42 terrorist outfits operating from across the border ... are intact,” he said. “There is no attempt on the part of the government of Pakistan to dismantle these terrorist outfits.”

The heavy-set, bearded Salahuddin, 61, has been at the forefront of the 21-year-old insurgency in Kashmir.

Salahuddin, from Badagam town in Indian Kashmir, was a politician who turned to militancy after he lost an election for the Kashmir legislative assembly in 1987, which he says was “massively rigged” by India.

He first crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir in 1990 and went back to Indian Kashmir several times for militant action when he would also meet his family under cover of darkness.

His group’s office, in a middle-class neighbourhood in Rawalpindi, gives no hint of a militant campaign except for Islamic books on jihad stacked in a cupboard.

Salahuddin said there was no hint of weariness among those fighting Indian forces.

“So far, every democratic, political and constitutional method has failed to yield any result. There is no other option other than this armed struggle,” he said.

Salahuddin calls for the merger of Kashmir with Pakistan but acknowledged there was a “school of thought” in Kashmir seeking independence from both India and Pakistan. But both were united in demanding Kashmir be freed from Indian rule, he said.

He defended alleged militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, including its founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, blamed by India for the Mumbai assault in which 166 people were killed.

“They are absolutely innocent in this respect,” he said LINK.