Srinagar:
The ambassador of the United States to India, Sergio Gor, is arriving in Srinagar today for a two-day visit to Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Sergio Gor is the first US diplomat to visit Kashmir after Operation Sindoor last year and the Galwan Valley clashes in eastern Ladakh in June 2020.
Gor, who also serves as US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for South and Central Asia, will be meeting Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Lt Governor Manoj Sinha. The visit is seen as a significant US diplomatic engagement in recent years amid heightened strategic developments in the region.
After Operation Sindoor, President Trump repeatedly claimed that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan in May last year and saved millions of lives — a claim India has not been comfortable with.
India’s stand is clear that the conflict was stopped after Pakistan requested a ceasefire.
Last time, former US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster visited Srinagar in January 2020 as part of a multi-nation diplomatic delegation hosted by the government following the abrogation of J&K’s special status in August 2019.
The US had endorsed India’s decision on J&K amid strong ties between the two countries, as Pakistan was diplomatically isolated due to India’s deft diplomacy.
This time, the visit has come amid growing proximity between President Trump and Pakistan’s hybrid civil- military leadership following recent Pakistani mediation in Iran’s war with the US.
Trump’s praise for a NATO-type trilateral defence agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey has also been a cause of concern in India. So, the visit by the US ambassador is watched with keen interest.
Gor’s scheduled meeting with Omar Abdullah is also a significant diplomatic messaging. India had faced criticism over the abrogation of Article 370. With an elected government in place, a US ambassador to India is meeting the elected chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
Omar Abdullah recently held protest in Delhi demanding the restoration of J&Ks statehood and constitutional safeguards. On the seventh anniversary of the scrapping of Article 370, all the major parties in J&K also held protest and observed August 5 as ‘black day’.
On Thursday, Gor is expected to visit Ladakh, the first visit by the US ambassador to the Himalayan region after Galwan valley clashes between the army and China’s People’s Liberation Army in June 2020.
The US had strongly backed India following those clashes in which 20 army soldiers were killed. The US condemned China’s attempt to change the status quo at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and helped India with real-time intelligence and high-altitude gear for soldiers as part of a strategic defence partnership between the two countries.
