Mirwaiz against issuing passport to Geelani: WikiLeaks

The cable with a subject title “Kashmiri rejectionist hardliner Geelani seeks US visa” was written by Pyatt – apparently then US Charge d’Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt.

Geelani had applied for a visa to travel to the US for medical treatment for cancer in his remaining kidney. The US had later denied visa to Geelani.

While making a cost-benefit analysis of issuing a visa,the US official had believed Geelani’s travel to their country would “physically” take him out of the political picture in India.

“Mirwaiz will not have Geelani breathing down his neck in a delicate political moment in the Valley,” the diplomatic cable said referring to the Indo-Pak dialogue process,which was believed to have thrashed out a resolution to the Kashmir issue.

One of the diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks had quoted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as saying New Delhi and Islamabad had in principle agreed on a resolution to the Kashmir issue.

Washington had mulled an alternate plan of sending Geelani to a third country like Singapore where he would not engage in as much “grandstanding or fund-raising” supported by the local Kashmiri community.