'Personal Visit': US on Ilhan Omar's PoK Visit After India Condemnation

On Thursday, India condemned Omar's visit to PoK, saying it violated India's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Ilhan Omar and Shehbaz Sharif.

(Photo: Twitter)

United States (US) lawmaker Ilhan Omar, who is on a four-day visit to Pakistan, visited Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) on Wednesday, 20 April. Reacting to her visit, Derek Chollet, counsellor to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said her "unofficial, personal" visit to PoK did not represent the US government in any way.

On Thursday, 21 April, India condemned Omar's visit to PoK, saying it violated India's territorial integrity and sovereignty and reflected her "narrow-minded" politics.

"It's an unofficial personal visit, and it does not represent any policy change on behalf of the United States government," Chollet told ANI.

Omar's four-day visit to Pakistan began on 20 April, and she also met the recently ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his successor Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday.

India Condemns Her Visit

Omar is a Somali-American who belongs to President Joe Biden's Democratic Party and represents Minnesota in the US House of Representatives. After her visit to PoK, she said that Kashmir should get more attention from the US.

"I don't believe that it (Kashmir) is being talked about to the extent it needs to in Congress but also with the administration," Omar told reporters.

Condemning her visit to PoK, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said on Thursday:

"Let me just say that if such a politician wishes to practice her narrow-minded politics at home, that's her business. But violating our territorial integrity and sovereignty... makes this ours, and we think the visit is condemnable."

Her meeting with Imran Khan at his residence at Bani Gala is also being criticised since Khan had accused the US of conspiracy to topple his government.

When asked about the Omar-Khan meeting, Chollet said, "Congresswoman's visit was a personal visit. It was not something that the State Department helped to organise, so I don't have much to comment on it. Because it was a visit made in her personal capacity."

Omar has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi. Previously, she had questioned the Biden administration officials over what she said was their "failure to criticise the Indian government on the issue of human rights and its actions against its Muslim minorities in India".

Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he had raised the issue of Kashmir with the 39-year-old lawmaker and stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution of the issue.

(With inputs from ANI and NDTV.)