24 foreign envoys to visit Jammu Feb. 18, 2021

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Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], February 18 : A group of 24 diplomats from foreign missions, including the European Union, who arrived in Srinagar Feb. 17, will visit Jammu on the second day of their tour on Thursday Feb. 18, 2021.

The envoys will be briefed by Army and police in Srinagar and then they will move to Jammu.

Later, they will attend lunch hosted by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. The diplomats are also scheduled to meet civil society representatives today. On Wednesday, the delegation had interacted with representatives of civil society and the government in Srinagar.

Foreign diplomats from Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Bangladesh, Malawi, Eritrea, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Malaysia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and the European Union are on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir.

The latest visit of foreign envoys comes in the backdrop of District Development Council polls, which saw huge participation and restoration of 4G mobile internet in the entire region after 18 months, which many see as a return of full normalcy in the Union Territory.

This is the first visit by foreign diplomats to Jammu and Kashmir since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two batches of foreign diplomats had earlier visited Jammu and Kashmir in January and February last year after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.

In January last year, envoys of 15 countries including the then US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster and diplomats from Vietnam, South Korea, Brazil, Niger, Nigeria, Morocco, Guyana, Argentina, Philippines, Norway, Maldives, Fiji, Togo, Bangladesh and Peru visited Jammu and Kashmir to see first-hand the efforts being made by the government in the region.

In February last year, 25 foreign diplomats, including those from Germany, Canada, France and Afghanistan, visited Jammu and Kashmir to witness the ground situation in the region.