(Karachi) Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has expressed hope that the new US administration which is talking about human rights protection will stop ignoring the ground realities in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

Addressing a photography and cultural exhibition organized in Islamabad on Thursday to pay tribute to the Kashmiris' resilience in their just struggle for right to self-determination, Qureshi said that Pakistan expects Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the European Union (EU) to play their roles on the issue.

He said that IIOJK is under military siege over the last 18 months. The FM highlighted that Kashmir is not an internal matter of India and the dispute has been on the agenda of Pakistan-India talks in the past as well. He pointed out that the UN Security Council held three discussions on IIOJK after India ripped the region of its special status on August 5, 2019.

The foreign minister said Pakistan wants to resolve this dispute through dialogue and peaceful manners as there is no military solution to it.

Regarding regional trade, the foreign minister said that Pakistan could have cooperated within the region on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic but there are difficulties on regional trade and development because of the Kashmir issue.

He said there is no regional trade and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) is also not functioning. "We have seen regional trade grow everywhere such as the European Union and Asean Association of Southeast Asian Nations".