MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan Kashmiri political and militant leaders on Tuesday rejected talks between Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers scheduled in Islamabad this week.

“The talks can be meaningful only if Kashmiris are made part of it,” the prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider, told a conference in Muzaffarabad, capital of the zone.

Kashmir, split between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in full, has triggered two of the three wars the two countries have fought since 1947.

Militant group Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) organised the conference of the 17 organisations fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan state under the umbrella United Jihad Council.

Haider urged delegates to strengthen the independence movement and called his government a base camp for the independence movement of Indian-administered Kashmir.

The conference came two days before India’s External Affairs Minister S.M.Krishna is to visit Islamabad for talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Syed Salahuddin, the leader of Hizbul Mujahideen and chairman of the United Jihad Council, said “the red carpet reception to Indian ministers in Islamabad has added to insult to injury for Kashmiris”.

“We reject the foreign ministers’ talks on Thursday. We also don’t accept any talks until Kashmiris are made part of it,” he added.

“Jihad is the only way to deal with India’s stubbornness. We will continue our struggle until the last Indian soldier leaves Kashmir,” Salahuddin said.

Pakistan’s banned charity Jammat-ud-Dawa, which is widely seen as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group blamed by New Delhi and Washington for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was also represented at the meeting.

“We are part of Kashmiri’s independence movement. This is not terrorism but a freedom fight,” said one of its leaders, Hafiz Saifullah Mansoor.

Indian forces have struggled to control demonstrations in Indian-administered Kashmir since being accused of killing 15 civilians, many of them teenagers, since the death of the first, a 17-year-old, on June 11.