All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) welcomed on Sunday comments by India's home minister that New Delhi would allow separatists to visit Pakistan, saying it would "push the peace process forward". "I welcome the statement", Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who has ruled out further negotiations with the government unless the separatists can hold talks in Pakistan, told reporters here.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil said at the start of a three-day tour of the troubled region on Saturday that there were no restrictions on anyone travelling to Pakistan, also embroiled in the bitter Kashmir dispute.
"If they (separatists) enquire ... through proper methods, we will look into it. There should not be any problem," he said in a departure from previous positions which ignored separatists' pleas for permission to visit Pakistan.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said: "If New Delhi allows us to visit Pakistan ahead of the third round of talks, it will push the peace process forward."
His moderate faction of the region's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, held two rounds of talks with former Indian deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani this year.
Mirwaiz, however, ruled out talks with India's left-backed Congress government which was elected in May until separatists were allowed to visit Pakistan.
"We have held two rounds of talks with New Delhi. Now there is a need to talk to the Pakistanis as they are also a party to the dispute," said Farooq, who is also a Muslim cleric.
He and other moderates want to discuss with Pakistani leaders and Kashmiri militant leaders based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir a "road map" they have prepared for solving the Kashmir tangle.
Only Farooq has a passport; other separatists have either been denied travel documents or have had them impounded by the Indian authorities. They are now likely to apply for fresh documents, a separatist source said.
Patil, meanwhile, visited Sunday a post on the border between India and Pakistan south of Jammu, the region's winter capital.
Police said security forces at the octroi border post told the minister that the fencing of the 187-km (117-mile) international border from Kathua to Akhnoor had been completed, resulting in a major drop in the infiltration of rebels.
India's security forces have been taking advantage of an almost year-long cease-fire between the Indian and Pakistani armies to fence the border and a 460-km stretch of the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir between the feuding neighbours.