At a time when the relations between New Delhi and Islamabad have shown signs of a dramatic thaw in the wake of the recent elections in Pakistan, Government of India has approved a proposal to send a high level delegation, comprising members of Jammu and Kashmir legislature to Pakistan as a goodwill gesture.
A few months back, the presiding officers of both the houses, Chairman of Legislative Council Amrit Malhotra and the then Speaker of Legislative Assembly Muhammad Akbar Lone had forwarded a written proposal to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah seeking approval of a “good will delegation” of legislators to visit Pakistan.
The chief minister forwarded the proposal to Government of India for approval. Responding to it, sources said, New Delhi recently gave a nod to the proposal thus clearing the way for the delegation’s historical visit to Pakistan.
After the clearance, the state law department asked the presiding officers of the Council and Assembly to furnish the names of at least three members, each from both lower and upper house, who would be part of this high-level delegation to visit Pakistan.
Apart from these six members, Chairman Legislative Council Amrit Malhotra, Speaker Mubarak Gul, Law Minister Saifullah Mir, Law Secretary Farhat Tasneem, Secretary Assembly Mohammad Ramzan and Secretary LC Mohammad Ashraf Mir would also be part of this delegation.
“The visit is purely a good will gesture. It would also be a landmark visit as it would be the first visit of Kashmiri legislators in the recent time to Pakistan,” sources said.
The approval of the visit also shows signs of change between the two countries. During the recently concluded election, the main parties in Pakistan including the supremo of PML (N) Nawaz Sharif have desisted from targeting India and expressed their willingness to improve the bilateral relations.
This led to warming of relations between the two arch rivals with the Indian premier, Manmohan Singh extending his good wishes to PML (N) for its victory and inviting Sharif to India.
Political observers believe that both the countries want to re-start the stalled peace process and the visit by Kashmiri legislators would be quite helpful since it would be a cozy pre-cursor for the thaw in the troubled relationship.
