The two-day International Kashmir Peace Conference, an attempt to find common ground between India and Pakistan for peace in the troubled region, concluded in Washington DC on Friday with a call for an intra-Kashmiri dialogue and humanitarian assistance for the people in the Valley.

Participants to a roundtable on the concluding day felt there was a need to connect the Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control even before the expected talks between India and Pakistan.

"A forum for intra-Kashmiri dialogues is a must as soon as possible because things are not going to improve overnight," said Dr Attiya Inayatullah, a former minister of Pakistan.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Ved Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times.

"Apart from a dialogue between India and Pakistan, the most important thing now is to have dialogues between Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control." said Bhasin. "This will help change the ground situation," he said.

The organisers of the conference, the Kashmiri American Council, posed two questions before the participants to the roundtable – how to promote dialogue among Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris and how to provide humanitarian assistance?

The attendees, most of them either from Pakistan or those associated with KAC, spoke more about the existing problems between India and Pakistan than about what could be done to promote a dialogue. Many squarely blamed
India for the problems. Ironically enough, the last day's discussion was titled: "Beyond the Blame Game: Finding Common Grounds for Peace and Justice in Kashmir."

There were some emotional moments too. One Kashmiri woman from the audience came to the podium and pleaded not to break Kashmir. "Whatever you do, please do not break my Kashmir," she said.

What emerged at the end of two days of intense discussions and lectures was some 30-odd suggestions from a motley group of speakers, ranging from demilitarisation of Kashmir to demands for allowing the All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders to travel outside India and allowing NGOs to providing relief to the Kashmiris.

The KAC, the organisers said, will prepare a memorandum on the basis of the suggestions made at the conference. This memorandum will be handed over to the members of the US Congress for their information and knowledge.

An aide of Congressman Joseph Pitts, who delivered the inaugural address on the inaugural day, said the lawmaker will share all the information f rom this conference with his colleagues in the Congress.

One of the issues that permeated the discussions throughout the two-day session was the issue of the participation of the Kashmiris in any dialogue between India and Pakistan. "Holding bilateral dialogues without the Kashmiris is not going to solve any problem," Ghulam Nabi Fai, the president of the KAC, told rediff.com echoing the sentiments of many a speakers at the conference.

Although the conference did not come out with a blueprint for peace, it ended by and large on a note of hope and optimism.

"It is not true to say as many have said that the Kashmir issue will not be solved because of India. We hope that things will change if not today, tomorrow," said Dr Ayyub Thakkar, president of the London-based World Kashmiri
Freedom Movement.