15 Diplomats including US, Norway Ambassador to visit Jammu & Kashmir

In this article, Senior journalist Smita Sharma explains the significance of the two-day trip of foreign diplomats to Jammu and Kashmir where they will meet civil society members and receive a briefing on the security situation from various agencies. This will be the first visit by diplomats since abrogation of the erstwhile state's special status on August 5 last year.

New Delhi:Two months after the controversial visit of an ‘unofficial’ European Union Delegation to Jammu and Kashmir post abrogation of Article 370 and reorganisation of the former state into Union Territory, another delegation is heading to the valley. This time Fifteen envoys and diplomats posted in foreign missions in India, including the US Ambassador Kenneth Juster and Norwegian Ambassador Hans Jacob Frydenlund, are heading to Srinagar and Jammu on Thursday as part of an official tour being conducted by New Delhi.

These foreign diplomats will first head to Srinagar to meet with some civil society groups and be briefed by multiple agencies about the security situation on the ground. Thereafter they will fly to Jammu where they will receive an audience with Lieutenant Governor G C Murmu and some other officials before returning to Delhi on the 10th of January.

“We have been receiving requests from some envoys based in Delhi to undertake a visit to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Our consistent position has been that we may consider the request only after analysing the security situation and checking the situation on the ground with the J&K Administration. Accordingly, a group of around 15 envoys based in Delhi are being taken to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir on 9-10 January to see first-hand the efforts being made by the government to bring the situation to normal,” said an official source.

The delegation, many from Latin American and African countries, includes diplomats from US, Morocco, Guyana, Fiji, Togo, Brazil, Niger, Nigeria, Argentina, Philippines, Norway, Maldives, Vietnam, Peru, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, and South Korea, as per sources. An official Ministry of External Affairs statement is likely to be issued after the visit. The inclusion of the American and Norwegian envoys is of particular significance given the critical questions raised on the Kashmir situation in both their countries.

According to sources talks are on to find another date for a possible similar but separate visit of envoys from the European Union member countries serving in Delhi. However, reports indicate that the EU envoys want ‘more access’ and lesser stringent conditions imposed on them as and when they visit the valley including a meeting with the detained former Chief Ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, and Mehbooba Mufti according to a news agency.

But government sources have described the media reports suggesting that EU Ambassadors are not part of the Group of Envoys visiting due to certain restrictions in the programme as ‘unfounded and mischievous’.

“We wanted to take a global group of envoys to J & K with only some EU Ambassadors, and not all EU envoys were asked to join. EU envoys welcomed this initiative by the Government. However, EU envoys wanted to visit J & K as a group, which was not possible to accommodate due to restrictions in numbers and to keep the group broad-based,” said a government source. Sources added that no EU Ambassador has specifically asked to meet any of the detained political leadership.

“Some EU Ambassadors conveyed that the visit was taking place at a short notice to seek instructions from headquarters. The Group was free to interact with people subject to security considerations. In any case, no Ambassador had specifically asked to meet anyone who was detained,” Government sources further claimed adding that consultations are on to find a later convenient date.

A ‘private’ visit by 24 predominantly Right-Wing European Parliament Members in October last year kicked up a row. The decision to ‘orchestrate’ the private visit was driven by the need to push back against “robust lobbying” by European politicians of Pakistani origins and was a first among several ‘conducted tours’ in the coming months, sources said then.