Modi to co-chair India-EU summit

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 10

The government will take about 20 foreign envoys for a second visit to Jammu & Kashmir by the end of this week. “Since the last visit of envoys to J&K on January 9 and 10, we have received several requests from foreign ambassadors to visit the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. A group of envoys from different geographical regions will be visiting J&K this week. We will share further updates in due course,” sources here said.

It is not yet clear whether the government will invite envoys from European countries who had sought an unchaperoned visit and the freedom to meet former CMs Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. Last time, several EU envoys were either not invited or had refused the government offer for a guided tour of the Kashmir valley.

Significantly, the visit will take place before External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar leaves for Brussels where he will also meet some MEPs besides doing spadework for PM Narendra Modi’s visit to co-chair the India-EU summit on March 13 which is being held after over two years.

Under pressure from the EU and US Congress over the communication lockdown in Kashmir, New Delhi feels it is the right time to meet the demand for release of all political prisoners who have been detained without charges.

The sources were hopeful that some European envoys would be among those who would be taken to J&K. India had done some fire-fighting with assurances to defer a European Parliament vote on five resolutions criticising New Delhi’s policies on Kashmir and CAA-NRC.

One of the main demands by the European Parliament as well as US Congress was permission to envoys and foreign journalists for unimpeded access to Kashmir. This visit, like last month’s two-day tour of 15 envoys and diplomats, is expected to blunt that argument although an earlier visit by 23 Members of the European Parliament was unable to prevent the tabling of six resolutions in the European Parliament against NRC and Kashmir.

But contacts between these right-wing MPs and Indian diplomats and a section of expatriates helping the government resulted in the withdrawal of one of the resolutions.