India / Diplomats from 16 countries to visit J&K on Thursday

US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster, along with envoys from 15 other countries, arrived in Srinagar on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, 9 January.

The Delhi-based envoys arrived by a special chartered flight at Srinagar's technical airport where top officials from the newly carved out union territory received them, officials said.

Later in the day, they would be going to Jammu, the winter capital of the newly created Union Territory, for an overnight stay. They will meet Lt Governor GC Murmu as well as civil society members, they said.

Besides the US, the delegation includes diplomats from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Norway, Maldives, South Korea, Morocco, and Nigeria, among others.

Brazil’s envoy André Aranha Correa do Lago was also scheduled to visit Jammu and Kashmir. However, he backed out because of his preoccupation, the officials said on Wednesday.

EU to Visit on a Different Date, Wants to Meet 3 Ex-CMs

Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) countries are understood to have conveyed that they would visit the Union Territory on a different date and are also believed to have stressed on meeting three former chief ministers – Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti – who are under detention.

The officials said the envoys of a number of countries had requested the government for a visit to Kashmir to get a first-hand account of the situation prevailing in the Valley following the abrogation of certain provisions of Article 370.

Second Visit by Foreign Delegation

This will be the second visit of a foreign delegation to Jammu and Kashmir since 5 August 2019, the day when the Centre withdrew the state's special status and bifurcated it into two Union territories – Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier, a delegation of 23 EU MPs was taken on a two-day visit to assess the situation in the Union Territory by the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies, a Delhi-based think tank.

However, the government had distanced itself from the visit of the delegation. Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy had informed Parliament that the European parliamentarians were on a "private visit".