The third International Kashmir Peace Conference will be held in Washington on September 24.
Noble Laureate Mr Jose Ramos-Horta, foreign minister of East Timor, is the keynote speaker, who will speak on "Peace Initiative in South Asia: The Issue of Kashmir".
The other speakers include Professor Bharat Karnad, Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi; Ms. Nitya Ramakrishnan, advocate, Supreme Court of India; Dr Surjit S Bhalla, managing director, Oxus Research & Investments, New Delhi; Mr. Ved Bhasin, Editor-in-Chief, Kashmir Times; Dileep Padgaonkar, Times of India.
From Pakistan, Gauhar Ayub Khan, former foreign minister; Ms. Nasim Zehra, Fellow, Harvard University, Asia Centre, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Hamid Nasir Chattha, chairman, Parliamentary Kashmir Committee; Makhdoom Amin Faheem, MNA; Liaquat Baloch, MNA and Sardar Talib Hassan Nikai, MNA will attend the conference.
The participants from the USA are Dr Robert G. Wirsing, Professor, Department of Regional Studies at Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii; Professor Marvin G. Weinbaum, Middle East Institute; Mr. Brian Cox, International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy; Mr. Anatol Lievenml, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Ms. Karen Parker, chair, Association of Humanitarian Lawyers; Amb. Yusuf Buch, former advisor to the UN Secretary General; Amb. Akbar S. Ahmed, Chair, Ibn-e-Khaldun Studies, American University; Khalid Hasan, journalist, Daily Times.
The Kashmiri leaders include Dr Ghulam N. Mir, President of WKFM, Syed Ali Geelani, chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference; Mohammad Yasin Malik, chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF); Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, All Parties Hurriyet Conference; Mr. Shabir A. Shah, president of Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party; Dr Hameeda Bano, University of Kashmir; Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry, former prime minister of Azad Kashmir; Shah Ghulam Qadir, chairman, Institute of Kashmir Studies; Farooq Siddiqi, JKLF.
The participants from Europe are Barrister Majeed Tramboo, Kashmir Centre, Brussels; Professor Nazir Shawl, Kashmir Centre, London; Lord Nazir Ahmed, member of the British House of Lords; Dr Jeffery Kile, London; Ali S. Khan, Kashmir Scandinavian Council, Oslo; Ms. Marjan Lucas of Persistent in Peace, The Hague.
There will be a Kashmir roundtable discussion on 25th September.