ISLAMABAD, July 20 (APP): Rejecting the perception about putting the Kashmir issue at back-burner, Special Assistant to PM on Foreign Affairs, Tariq Fatemi Wednesday said that Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif had constantly been raising the Kashmir issue at all international fora.
“Eversince Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to power, he has spoken of Kashmir…., Kashmir issue figured in the 2013 and 2014 speeches of the Prime Minister before the UN General Assembly,” Tariq Fatemi said in a PTV-World programme.
He said during the Prime Minister’s address to UN General Assembly in 2015, the issue of Kashmir was elaborated and detailed alongwith the solid proposals on how to move forward.
Tariq Fatemi recalled Prime Minister Sharif’s visit to the United States in October 2015 and said it was due to the personal efforts of the Prime Minister that the Joint Statement, issued after the meeting between PM Sharif and President Obama, specifically referred to the need for a
peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
“That was for the first time after decades. That is what you achieve when you are pursuing a goal…. with all sincerity,” he maintained.
To a question, Tariq Fatemi said, Prime Minister Sharif
believed in cordial relations with all neighbours, adding, but
“I want to tell you that Nawaz Sharif Sahib, come what may, `no way’ will he ever agree to any suggestion that in any way weakens the Kashmiri cause for freedom.”
“He (Nawaz) is the Prime Minister, who protects Pakistan’s core interests, if need be, at the cost of his leadership,” Tariq Fatemi remarked.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs recalled the nuclear tests by Pakistan in 1991 after the Indians did so and said, Prime Minister Sharif stood upto the United States, UK, Japan and others and did not accepted the extreme international pressures.
