Int’l community urged to play role for reducing Pak-India tension, resolving Kashmir issue

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry Thursday said it is the high time for international community to play its role for reducing tension between Pakistan and India and resolving the long-standing issue of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) which is the main reason of this conflict.

Speaking at a press conference here, Barrister Sultan Mehmood said “Sustainable peace between India and Pakistan is impossible without resolution of Kashmir issue as per aspiration of Kashmiri masses”.

In view of the Pak-India tension prevailing during the last few days, he said, Pakistan was prepared for dialogue with Indian government on all the issues; however, Indian government is interested in ratcheting up tension with Pakistan to solidify Hindu votes in the upcoming general elections.

He said it would have been better, if India and Pakistan would sit together and have dialogue after Pulwama incident not allowing the non-state actors to further aggravate the situation.

Barrister Sultan Mehmood stated that Indian government and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi were actually not absorbing investment coming to Pakistan, trade agreements with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and other countries, country’s growing economy and of course China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

He said India actually wanted to isolate Pakistan internationally and after failing in its objectives, it started conflict with Pakistan.

Mentioning the on going negotiations between United States and Taliban, he said, Pakistan is playing important role while India is feeling neglected.

He stressed New Dehli needed to revisit its Kashmir policy and immediately swap its aggressive strategy with the dialogue process to pacify the Kashmiris for the sake of peace in the Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK).

Their first priority should be stopping war-mongering things, escalating situation and come up to initiate dialogue on all the issues.

Barrister Sultan Mehmood said, as a Kashmiri, he would say that he has suffered a lot for the last 71 years. India has deployed over 700,000 military troops in the occupied Kashmir and sent 20,000 more troops during the last two weeks which means half of India army.

He said United Nation Security Council (UNSC) has clearly accepted the self-determination right of Kashmiri people which India was continuously denying while United Nations Human Rights Council has also published a report of Indian aggression and gross violation of human rights in occupied Kashmir which was eye-opener for international community.

Indian forces in IoK have been using all sorts of atrocities including use of pellet guns to target youth and sexual assault as a tool of torture which needed to be stopped immediately, he added.

The press conference was also attended by Sir Lankan Head of Mission, N. M. M. Anas, Japan Deputy Head of Mission, Shindo Yusuke, Japan Counselor, Katsumoto, Head of Mission, Embassy of Portugal, Ms Maria Manuela Caetano, German Deputy head, Jens Jokisch, Chinese Deputy Head of Mission, Zhao Lijian and Charge Affairs Hugary Embassy, Tivadar Takacs.