Hurriyat upbeat on Kashmir peace

"I am very much hopeful that India will continue to pursue peace talks with Pakistan and separatists in Kashmir," said Molvi Abbas Ansari, head of the moderate faction of the main Kashmir separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

"The will of Kashmiris has to be taken into consideration before a solution is reached" on the Kashmir dispute, Ansari told AFP.

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Sonia Gandhi's Congress party and its allies are set to form a new government after an upset defeat of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalists.

Vajpayee, 79, had declared it his personal mission to make peace with Pakistan and in Kashmir, where an anti-Indian insurgency has raged since 1989, despite his party's hawkish roots.

Sonia has pledged to continue peace moves, but analysts in Pakistan said the process may lose momentum without Vajpayee.

The Ansari faction held two rounds of breakthrough talks with Vajpayee's deputy Lal Krishna Advani this year.

But separatists are sharply divided, with pro-Pakistani hardliners and guerrilla groups opposed to the Ansari faction's talks with New Delhi.