Kashmir in focus
According to the reports, central government is going to arrange the visit of dozens of diplomats especially from Europe to Jammu and Kashmir in the coming weeks. This would be second round of the visit of diplomats to Kashmir as in the recent past the government has been maintaining Kashmir has improved and peace is prevailing.
Unlike the last visit in January, when European Union (EU) members declined to travel, and asked to be sent as a combined group of 27 members, this time, several members of the EU have agreed to visit, some media reports from New Delhi said.
Recently External Affairs Minister met the EU Heads of Mission (HOMs) in South Block, where he is understood to have discussed his upcoming visit, the planned visit of envoys to Jammu and Kashmir as well as concerns against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which are likely to come up during his visit to Europe.
Central government is happy that after the first visit of diplomats to Kashmir valley they have received positive feedback from the delegation members. In the previous visit of ambassadors to Kashmir, US ambassador was also among the diplomats and he met number of delegations in Kashmir during his stay.
The envoys have been expressing their concern about issues like political detentions and Internet restrictions, they were able to see that there was normalcy on the roads, and the entire Union Territory was not under lockdown as they had expected.
Central government is mulling to explain the position on the ground to all the foreign envoys that have their reservations about the handling of Kashmir post abrogation of article 370 on August 5, 2019. After the first visit, the proposed second visit of envoys will encourage the government to send more such delegations to Jammu and Kashmir so that they have the feel of ground situation.
