European delegation’s Kashmir tour was private visit, govt tells Rajya Sabha

The two-day visit of 27 European parliamentarians to Kashmir on 28 October had been criticised severely by opposition parties.

Members of European Union Parliamentary delegation during a shikara ride at Dal Lake in Srinagar | PTI

New Delhi: The group of 27 European parliamentarians who visited Kashmir on 28 October were on a “private visit to India”, the government informed the Rajya Sabha Wednesday.

In a written reply, Minister of State (MoS), Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy said the group of 27 Members of European Parliament (MEP) were invited by the International Institute for Nonaligned Studies, a Delhi-based think tank, which had also organised the trip.

Reddy was responding to a set of questions on the Kashmir tour.

Replying to a question on why the MEPs were allowed to travel while Indian parliamentarians have been refused, Reddy said permission was not granted to the latter for “security reasons”.

While distancing itself from the visit, the government’s reply also stated that such tours promoted “deeper people-to-people contact” and “ultimately…feeds into the larger relationship which any two countries would like to develop”.

The opposition parties had earlier attacked the government over the EU delegation’s tour of Kashmir, calling the move “self defeating”.

“This stand of the government is self-defeating and contradicts our consistent position that J&K is India’s internal matter. Is this the new version of Indian nationalism?” Anand Sharma, deputy leader of Congress in Rajya Sabha, had earlier said.

The opposition had also slammed the government for inviting far-right members in the EU delegation, including the German Alternative for Germany (AfD) which is known for its anti-immigrant stance, and France’s Rassemblement National.

‘No scope for third-party role’

Reddy also said that meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the MEPs were facilitated, as has previously been done during familiarisation visits for visiting Members of Parliament of different countries.

“The MEPs had expressed their desire that they would like to visit Kashmir to understand how terrorism is affecting India and how this has been a challenge for India. They got a sense of the threat of terrorism and how terrorism poses a threat to India especially in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir,” his reply stated.

Answering if the outfit that had organised the tour was working as a coordinating institution for the Government of India, Reddy reiterated that the visit was a “private one”.

When asked if the visit could be seen as an “external intervention” in the Kashmir issue, Reddy replied: “India’s consistent position has been that issues, if any, with Pakistan are discussed only bilaterally. There is no scope for any third party role or mediation.”