Onus is on India to create enabling environment for meaningful engagement: FO

(Karachi) Foreign Office Spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri has said that the onus is on India to create enabling environment for meaningful engagement, local media reported.

Addressing a weekly media briefing the other day, Hafeez said that India must rescind its illegal and unilateral actions, end its state-terrorism against the Kashmiri people, and agree to resolve the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

"It is India that has vitiated the environment with its illegal, inhuman and unilateral actions of August 5, 2019," he added. He said the statement by the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan General Qamar Javed Bajwa, when compared to the statements by the Indian military leadership, clearly shows the difference of approach and mind set.

The statement by the COAS is a reflection of Pakistan’s desire for peace and security in the region, he said. “Pakistan has consistently maintained that there can be no resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute without letting the Kashmiri people exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, as enshrined in the relevant UNSC Resolutions.”

Rejecting the impression of any change in Pakistan’s longstanding stance on the issue of IIOJK, Chaudhri said: “We have been repeatedly saying that there is absolutely no change in Pakistan’s principled position on Jammu and Kashmir dispute. On the other hand, India has been consistently changing its position in this regard."

He pointed out that the solution of the dispute lies in the realisation of the Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations.

The foreign spokesperson said the current situation in India is a sad reminder of the fact that under the BJP-RSS regime, extremist Hindutva ideology takes precedence over all principles of justice, human rights and democratic norms.

“Regarding the farmers’ protest in India, we have been repeatedly saying that under the RSS-BJP combine, India is no more a democracy but an extremist Hindutva regime. Today, the international community is coming around to this view,” he maintained.