"It is a good sign that the All-Party Hurriyat Conference and the government have decided to set up a formal mechanism to continue and sustain peace dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue," said Syed Iftikhar Geelani, a senior political analyst.

The All-Party Hurriyat Conference is an umbrella organization of 25 Kashmiri separatist outfits engaged against the Indian rule demanding liberation.

Geelani said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not want an open-and-shut discussion on Kashmir. Rather, Singh has demonstrated his commitment to the peace process with his virtual sidelining of other Kashmiri separatist groups with which the government was dealing earlier, as he has agreed to consider Hurriyat's proposals to solve the Kashmir problem.

Singh held a two-hour meeting with a delegation from the moderate Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Wednesday to find an acceptable and long-lasting solution to the impasse. After the meeting, the two sides announced they would create a system to ensure the continuation of the peace talks.

The meeting is significant, as it was held ahead of the second roundtable conference on Kashmir, scheduled to take place in Srinagar May 25.

While the mechanism itself has yet to be outlined, it appears two small groups may be formed to continue dialogue and work out the modalities on various issues concerning the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir and its people and other concerned parties, including Pakistan.

"The PM described his discussions with Hurriyat as a 'meeting of minds' and hoped that they would lead to better times for the people of the state," said Sanjay Baru, Singh's media adviser.

The Hurriyat Conference also responded positively to the meeting's outcome. Farooq called the discussions frank and fruitful, saying all aspects of the issue had been deliberated upon in a cordial atmosphere.

"Hurriyat will come back with specific proposals for kick-starting the discussions on the Kashmir issue in its entirety within the framework of a mechanism," said Indian Interior Minister Shivraj Patil, who also attended the meeting along with National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan.

Singh wants the discussions to be result-oriented, and for that reason he has set a deadline of 2008 for settling the issue. He has therefore agreed to study Hurriyat's proposals -- if they are capable of yielding results.

Hurriyat, which did not attend the first roundtable conference on the grounds that "crowds make noises, not decisions," has this time kept its options open regarding the second meeting.

"Hurriyat would prefer a composite team of Kashmir-centric political parties and other separatists to take up concrete discussions in the proposed conclave in Srinagar," Farooq said at the time.

Singh said he would have been very delighted to see Hurriyat's participation, but would not make it a point. "The important thing is that dialogue remains on track and sustained," Baru quoted Singh as saying.

India's federal government then decided to rope in the Farooq faction of Hurriyat in the peace talks and sidelined other, comparatively smaller, separatist groups, like the People's Conference of Sajjad Lone, which has placed tough conditions on the government, and which is said it turn were unacceptable.

Analysts say that Yasin Malik, chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, is more of a problematic than serious representative of the Kashmiri people, as he pivots here and there while Democratic Freedom Movement leader Shabir Shah has been isolated.

The formulation worked out in the meeting involved the creation of two committees to maintain live contacts and regular interaction between the government and the separatist group. Interior Minister Shivraj Patil, Security Adviser Narayanan and interlocutor N.N. Vohra will head the government-backed group.

Farooq told Singh that Hurriyat would also have a three-member committee, headed by its former Chairman Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat, to interact with the government-sponsored committee.

The government left it to the separatists to work out the "mechanism" under which both agreed to continue talks.

"I am greatly satisfied with talks and I am sure the parleys will be result-oriented over a period of time," said Saifuddin Soz, a Kashmiri federal minister who worked as political interlocutor between the government and Hurriyat, and who was instrumental in facilitating Wednesday's meeting.

The decision to hold talks with Kashmiri separatist groups was taken by the previous National Democratic Alliance government in 2004. At that time, the federal government promised to come up with a proposal to outline the modalities of further talks.

It failed to create such a proposal before leaving office.

The United Progressive Alliance government, however, retained the interlocutor N.N. Vohra, who has been given the responsibility of talking with all groups in Kashmir, including separatists.

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