Authorities doing their best; optimistic that situation will improve with time, says Niger Ambassador on J-K visit

Niger Ambassador to India Leko Ado, who was part of a delegation of foreign envoys which undertook a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, said on Friday that he is optimistic after the trip that the situation in the newly-formed Union territory will improve with time.

"My assessment is that... the authorities are doing the best they can to address whether it is security, planning, governance, (and) to make the administration more functional. I am optimistic that the situation will improve as time goes on," Ado told ANI.

Earlier in the day, Vietnamese Ambassador to India Pham Sanh Chau, who was also part of the delegation, said that he witnessed a "normalcy in the daily lives of the people" during his visit to the region.

The envoy had added that he was not a "fact-finding delegation, nor the judges of the international court.

"We don't have that mandate, so we just came and observed and have an assessment of our own. I see signs of happiness on the faces of people when I talk to them," Chau said.

The envoys visited Jammu and Kashmir to look at the first-hand ground situation in the newly formed Union Territory and the efforts made by the government to normalise the situation after the revocation of the erstwhile state's special status in August last year.

The group of foreign envoys included those from United States, South Korea, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Maldives, Morocco, Fiji, Norway, Philippines, Argentina, Peru, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, and Guyana.