HIGHLIGHTS: Powell Expected in Region Later this Week|| JKLF Wants to Reunite all of the Jammu Kashmir state and Make it a Fully Independent Country||Group Calls for an International Committee to be Formed to Steer Region Towards Independence in 15 Years|| STORY: A nationalist Kashmiri group called on U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday to back its campaign for independence from Pakistan and India.

The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which launched the armed struggle against Indian rule in Kashmir in 1988, said in a statement faxed to Reuters that a U.N.-backed referendum should be held to allow Kashmiris to decide their own fate.

"The only practicable, peaceful, equitable, democratic and permanent solution of the issue...is to reunite the divided Jammu Kashmir state and make it a fully independent country," the statement said.

The JKLF said a detailed letter had been sent to Powell, who visits Pakistan and India later this week to seek to keep a lid on tensions between the nuclear rivals over the disputed Himalayan region.

It said that Kashmiris were tired of being ignored by the two countries, which have one million troops stationed on their border in a tense military standoff.

India controls around 45 percent of Jammu and Kashmir, and considers the territory an integral part of its country. Pakistan controls just over a third, while China has the remainder.

India accuses Pakistan of sending militants across into Indian Kashmir to attack troops and civilians there.

New Delhi also faces separatist guerilla groups from inside its part of the mountainous region in an uprising which has cost more than 30,000 lives.

Political analysts expect Powell to push for a timetable of talks between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a proposal which the JKLF said it would reject.

"It (is) useless to press India and Pakistan to solve the Kashmir issue through bilateral talks as they have not been able to do so during the last half a century."

The group called for a committee, made up of representatives from the United Nations and several countries, to steer the region toward a referendum in 15 years.

People would be asked whether they wanted full independence, or to join Pakistan or India

PHOTO CAPTION

An Indian paramilitary trooper stands in front of a security truck with its wind screen shattered after a bomb explosion, at a security camp in Srinagar July 22, 2002. A policeman was injured in an explosion near a security force camp in the heart of the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, police said. Photo by Fayaz Kabli/Reuters