Envoys of 17 nations, including US, reach Kashmir for 2-day visit to assess conditions since shutdown
Foreign envoys from 17 nations, including the United States, have reached Kashmir as the newly formed Union Territory enters the sixth month of complete lockdown and internet shutdown.However, envoy of the European Union is skipping the visit after being denied permission to meet the local leaders and detained former chief ministers of J&K, Omar Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.US Ambassador to India Kenneth I Juster along with envoys from 16 other countries arrived in Srinagar on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday.
By India Today Web Desk: Foreign envoys from 17 nations, including the United States, have reached Kashmir as the newly formed Union Territory enters the sixth month of complete lockdown and internet shutdown.

The 17 nations that are visiting the Kashmir Valley are USA, Vietnam, South Korea, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Niger, Nigeria, Morroco, Guyana, Argentina, Philippines, Norway, Maldives, Fiji, Togo, Bangladesh and Peru.

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However, envoy of the European Union is skipping the visit after being denied permission to meet the local leaders and detained former chief ministers of J&K, Omar Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.

US Ambassador to India Kenneth I Juster along with envoys from 16 other countries arrived in Srinagar on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday. This is the first such visit by the foreign envoys.

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.

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

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 G C Murmu as well as civil society members.

Brazil's envoy André Aranha Correa do Lago was also scheduled to visit Jammu and Kashmir. However, he backed out because of his preoccupation in Delhi.

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.

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.

The move is part of India's diplomatic outreach to rebut Pakistan's propaganda against it on the Kashmir issue.

(With PTI inputs)