Sardar Masood Khan, President Azad Jammu and Kashmir, on Monday met the new Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, and thanked him for strong statement on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. We welcomed his affirmation that there would be no compromise on Kashmir; and that India should reciprocate Pakistan's peace overture.
After congratulating Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif on his assumption of office as the Foreign Minister, President Masood Khan briefed him about the fast deteriorating human rights and humanitarian situation in the Occupied Kashmir. "It is a crisis unfolding every day", he said.
"Every day young men are being gunned down by the occupation forces in staged encounters; and scores of political activists demanding freedom from India are being arrested and persecuted on the basis of fabricated, trumped up charges. There is a reign of terror in IOK", the President said.
Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said that Pakistan would maintain and step up its moral, diplomatic and political support to the people of Kashmir; and would work with the international community to put an end to massive human rights violations in IoK. He said that peace between India and Pakistan would be possible only through finding a durable solution to the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan, he said, is ready to explore a solution though diplomacy.
President Masood Khan thanked Pakistan for its consistent and strong stand on Kashmir bilaterally and at the international forums. Kashmiris, he said, had vowed that they would win freedom despite India's repression and state terrorism. They would, he said, secure their inalienable right to self-determination.-PR