New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
will be on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir from June
7 during which he is expected to renew the offer for talks
with separatists and review the progress in the Round Table
peace initiative.
Official sources said on Tuesday that the Prime Minister will also
address a convocation of the Sher-e-Kashmir Agricultural
University in Srinagar. Governor N N Vohra, who is also the
University Chancellor, had invited Singh to the event.
It will be for the second time that the Prime Minister
will be visiting the Kashmir Valley after he got a second term
last May. He was in Sringar last October.
The sources said Singh was expected to hold
consultations with various political parties of the state over
the progress on recommendations made during the two sessions
of the Round Table Conference chaired by him.
The visit comes against the backdrop of the "quiet
diplomacy" initiated by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram with
separatist leaders failing to make any headway as the Hurriyat
refused to join it owing to pressures from the militant
groups.
Singh is likely to renew the offer of the Union
government to hold talks with separatists asking them to shun
the path of violence and work towards normalcy in the state.
He is expected to hold meetings with various political
parties of the state during which the ruling National
Conference will seek early talks on providing greater autonomy
in the state as recommended by Sagir Ahmed Committee set up by
the Prime Minister himself, the sources said.
A meeting with senior bureaucrats and Army and police
officials was also being planned to discuss the spurt in
infiltration from across the border.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, May 18, 2010, 18:24