New Delhi, June 4: The coordination committee on Kashmir met today to prepare the ground for the third round of talks between the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and the government, in which the Hurriyat is expected to raise “substantive issues”.

Government sources suggest the Hurriyat has been anxious to “correct” the impression in some quarters of the Valley that it had not got enough concessions from the government for having come to the negotiating table.

The conglomerate is likely to look for some clear signals from the Centre in the third meeting so that it is seen to be bargaining hard for the welfare of the people of the Valley.

This has become all the more important in view of last month’s attacks on Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq’s residence and his relative. The Hurriyat has declared that it would decide on whether to continue the dialogue with the Centre only after evaluating the steps taken by the Union government.

“We will be closely watching the measures taken by government,” Hurriyat leader Maulana Abbas Ansari had said in Srinagar earlier this week. In today’s meeting, the committee discussed the situation in the Valley, including the recent attack on Umer Farooq.

The meeting was attended by .. Vohra — the Centre’s special representative for the Jammu and Kashmir dialogue — Union home secretary Anil Baijal, the special secretary handling Kashmir and internal security, B.B. Mishra, Intelligence Bureau director K.P. Singh and officials from the Research and Analysis Wing.

At the end of the second round of talks with former deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in March-end, the Hurriyat had declared it would discuss “substantive” issues in the third meeting.

But officials felt that the Hurriyat leaders could find the power structure of the United Progressive Alliance complex, used as they were to the former deputy Prime Minister, who wielded significant influence within the National Democratic Alliance.

Some Hurriyat leaders have reportedly sent indications that they were a trifle uneasy about building a rapport with a new person all over again. Officials, however, said this should not pose problems. Vohra, who plans to visit Kashmir in the middle of this month to continue with the efforts of wooing more groups for talks, will meet home minister Shivraj Patil over the next few days to brief him on the committee’s discussions.