New Delhi/Srinagar, Nov 20 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir’s separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was free to travel anywhere he wanted to, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said here Friday. The chief of the moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference plans to visit China and Pakistan after Eid on Nov 28.
“He (the Mirwaiz) is free to travel wherever he wants to,” Krishna told reporters outside parliament.

In Islamabad, the separatist leader will meet the Pakistan leadership to discuss the resolution of the Kashmir issue. In Beijing, which he visits on the invitation of a Chinese NGO, he will deliver a lecture.

Discussing the Pakistan visit, the Mirwaiz had told IANS: “We will be meeting the Pakistan leadership. It is a part of our effort to seek peaceful resolution of the (Kashmir) issue.”

Sources close to him added that he would be applying for a China visa soon. If the visit comes through, he would become the first Kashmiri separatist leader to visit China.

The proposed visit to China comes in the wake of diplomatic skirmishes between New Delhi and Beijing, especially over China’s insistence of issuing stapled visas to citizens belonging to Jammu and Kashmir.