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PoK business team puts off visit

ISLAMABAD: In a development that may delay efforts to launch the proposed intra-Kashmir trade across the Line of Control, a delegation of businessmen from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), scheduled to travel to the Jammu and Kashmir capital Srinagar on Saturday for a meeting with their counterparts, has put off their visit until mid-October.

Zulfikar Abbasi, president of the Azad Jammu & Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told The Hindu that he had received word from Mobeen Shah of the Kashmir Chamber of Industry and Commerce (KCCI) that on account of the Ramzan month and the upcoming festival of Id, the second week of October would be a more suitable time for the delegation to visit.

Indian officials expressed surprise at the development. They were expecting the PoK delegation to leave on Saturday as scheduled and hold a meeting with their J&K counterparts in Srinagar on Sunday.

The officials said their information was that the KCCI businessmen were all set to receive their counterparts from across the LoC on Saturday.

New Delhi has been trying to hasten intra-Kashmir trade as one way to defuse the continuing crisis in the Valley, and wants it to begin, at least in a small way, on October 1. Pakistan, which wants to be seen as helping Kashmiris on the Indian side in their time of distress, has also seemed keen to get it under way.

The cross-LoC businessmen’s interaction was coordinated with a scheduled meeting of Indian and Pakistani officials in New Delhi on Monday to finalise the details of operationalising the trade.

The India-Pakistan Joint Working Group of officials were hoping that the businessmen would come up with suggestions on the practical aspects of conducting the trade such as the modus operandi for opening letters of credit, what currency to use, what kind of infrastructure traders would need at the crossing point on the LoC, aside from proposals for finalising items for trade.

Mr. Abbasi said he could not take his delegation only because the other side was not ready. “We are in a fix ourselves. We were all ready to go. But who will receive us, who will we talk to? Should we go only for a photo session or do we want to have substantive discussions with the businessmen,” he asked.

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