New Delhi/Srinagar, Nov 20 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir’s Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was free to travel anywhere he wanted to, including China, but his visa should not be separately stapled as the Chinese embassy issues to Kashmiris, the government said Friday.
The chief of the moderate faction of the separatist Hurriyat Conference plans to visit China and Pakistan after Eid on Nov 28.

“He (the Mirwaiz) is free to travel wherever he wants to,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told reporters outside parliament in Delhi.

Hours later, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao echoed the minister’s view but she said the visa to the Kashmiri leader should not be separately stapled as the Chinese had been doing for travellers from the state.

“We have not prevented Kashmiri leaders from travelling abroad.” Rao said and reiterated New Delhi’s objections to the Chinese policy of issuing stapled visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh.

There should be no discrimination on the basis of domicile, she said.

“We don’t accept that view,” Rao replied when asked whether the Mirwaiz’s visit showed that China was trying to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir

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

The Mirwaiz has been invited by a Chinese NGO to deliver a lecture.

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

In Islamabad, the Mirwaiz will meet the Pakistan leadership to discuss the resolution of the Kashmir issue.

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.”