The Pakistani government has talked to a plethora of Kashmiri politicians–the separatists, and the Delhi puppets. Recently those who were aligned with Delhi were allowed to visit Pakistan. Omar Abdullah was on all the channels and making his case. The Hurriyat leaders were also invited and Mir Waiz and Gilani made the airwaves. The way the Pakistani nation responded to the earthquake in Kashmir surely did impact the psyche of the Kashmiris. The government of Mr. Zardari/Gilani however is not to amenable to giving any legitmacy to the Kashmiri leaders slected by Delhi and then elected in sham “elections”.

Contrary to the shifting positions of Mr. Musharraf, the PPPP has gone to Pakistan’s principled stand on Kashmir–that the dispute needs to be resolved in accordance with the UN resolutions.

• “I was supposed to visit Pakistan to attend two conferences. While (one) was deferred due to the prevailing (insecure) situation there, the other one was not re-scheduled. However, I was informed by the organisers of the conference that due to the current situation (insecure) in Pakistan I should not visit the country.”
• Twelve other participants in the conference, including former Jammu University Vice-Chancellor Amitabh Mattoo and the director of Hindi medium implementation, Delhi University, Asha Gupta, have received the visa and are already in Pakistan.

The organisers of the “South Asia 2060″ conference, the Islamabad-based Sustainable Development Policy Initiatives, said Ms. Mehbooba had applied for the visa only four days ago and her papers could not be processed in time for her departure.

Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the People’s Democratic Party, has had to cancel her participation in a conference here after she was unable to obtain a visa to travel to Pakistan.

The organisers of the “South Asia 2060” conference, the Islamabad-based Sustainable Development Policy Initiatives, said Ms. Mehbooba had applied for the visa only four days ago and her papers could not be processed in time for her departure.

However, the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi was able to process a visa for the former Jammu University Vice-Chancellor Amitabh Mattoo, another participant at the same conference. He applied at the same time as the Kashmiri leader.

A group of 20 other Indians is also participating in the two-day conference.

The Pakistan High Commission gave no reasons for not giving the Kashmir politician a visa. According to reports from New Delhi, Ms. Mehbooba seems to think it was rejected on account of the delicate security situation prevailing in Pakistan.

The development has caused a flutter among Kashmir observers here, but is seen as not entirely unexpected. The leader of the PDP, which is the main Opposition party in Jammu and Kashmir, had positioned herself as a Kashmiri leader who had Pakistan’s backing, especially after her last visit here in March 2008, when she was granted an audience with all the leaders of the newly elected democratic set-up there.

The separatist lobby in Kashmir was angered by the enthusiastic welcome to her, as they saw it as another sign of Pakistan’s embrace, at their expense, of Kashmiri politicians in the Indian mainstream. 

• In a stark signal that the bonhomie between Kashmiri mainstream political parties and Pakistan may be drawing to a close, Islamabad on Sunday denied a visa to PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti to visit the country for a conference.
• “I have not got the visa,” Mehbooba told The Indian Express. “But so what? It is their prerogative to either give or deny me a visa.”

[During the Musharraf Administration)..Islamabad [was]opening channels of communication with leading lights of Kashmir’s political mainstream, such as Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba. When President Pervez Musharraf was in power, Pakistan received a gaggle of mainstream politicians from Jammu and Kashmir, including those from the Congress and BJP.

Shah Zaman Khan, Minister, Press at the Pakistani mission in New Delhi, however, said Mehbooba had not been denied a visa yet.

“She is a political personality. And therefore her visa has been sent to the Interior Division in Islamabad,” Khan told The Indian Express. “It is a delay, not denial.”

However, the conference Mehbooba was supposed to attend, the Twelfth Conference on Sustainable Development, begins tomorrow. Prof Amitabh Mattoo, the only other person from India invited to the conference, is already in Pakistan. Indian Express

Keywords: PDP leader, Mehbooba Mufti, fails to get visa, Pakistan, South Asia 2060, conference