Sartaj calls upon world community to play role in holding plebiscite in Kashmir

ISLAMABAD, Jan 5 (APP): Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz has called upon the international community and
India to fulfill promises made to Jammu & Kashmir people for exercise
of their inalienable right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations.
Addressing International Parliamentary Seminar on Jammu and Kashmir here on Thursday, he said that Pakistan is utilizing all possible avenues to project the cause of Kashmir and to find its lasting settlement in accordance with the wishes of the people.
“Let there be no doubt that Pakistan will continue to extend its steadfast support to the Kashmiri people,” he asserted.
Pakistan is committed to extending all moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Jammu and Kashmir in their historic struggle for their right to self-determination, he said.
The moot was opened by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and was attended, among others, by Speaker National Assembly, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Minister for Defence, Khawaja Asif, President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Masood Khan and Prime Minister of AJK, Raja Farooq Haider.
Sartaj Aziz stressed that the UN Security Council Resolutions on Jammu & Kashmir offer the only plausible, peaceful and democratic solution to the Jammu & Kashmir dispute.
The Kashmir dispute remains the core issue between India and Pakistan, he said. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the United Nations General Assembly last September had said “Peace and normalization between Pakistan and India cannot be achieved without a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. This is an objective evaluation, not a partisan
position”, he quoted.
A deeply worrying aspect of Indian actions in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) is the attempt to change the demography of Kashmir and convert its Muslim majority into a minority, he said. Recent reports of issuance of Kashmiri citizenship to non-state subjects, have led to protests and clashes in the IoK, he added.
“Equally disturbing are reports of extension of SARFAESI Act to IoK, whereby Indian Banks can seize property of Kashmiri people and sell them to non-state subjects.”
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz said, “We condemn such measures as complete violation of international law and United Nations Security Council Resolutions and call upon India to desist from taking any action that could alter the demography of IoK.
He said July 8, 2016, which marks the extra judicial murder of young Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani at the hands of Indian occupying forces has proven to be a pivotal turning point for the Kashmir freedom movement.
200,000 people who attended his funeral inspired the entire population of IoK to recalibrate their march towards Azadi, despite a reign of terror unleashed by Indian occupation forces.
Since then, he said, Indian forces have used live ammunition and pellet guns on the unarmed Kashmiri civilians with impunity, leading to scores of deaths and injuries.
Due to pellet injuries, thousands of people have sustained severe eye injuries, leading to partial or permanent blindness, he added.
“There was unanimity, even in India that the present wave of uprising is indigenous and cannot be brought under the convenient label of so called “cross border terrorism”, he said.
Former Indian NSA M. K Narayanan wrote in The Hindu on October 10, 2016 that Kashmir freedom movement is “home grown and cannot be blamed on Pakistan or outsiders”.
Sartaj Aziz pointed out that the educated and tech savvy youth of Kashmir were leading this uprising.
This new leadership was effectively using social media and information technology in a peaceful manner.
The Indian Express notes that “a new generation”, mostly from prosperous families, is increasingly taking centre stage of the Kashmiri uprising, he noted.
The movement, he said, has sustained itself for five long months, despite unprecedented coercion by Indian forces. The “protest calendar” issued by Hurriyat leadership is earnestly followed with constant ‘Hartals’ (shut downs) and boycotts, he added.
There is growing realization in India on the nature and the scale of draconian measures adopted by the Indian government in IoK, he said adding that pictures of blinded youth have touched everyone.
He quoted one Indian expert who termed it “extreme suppression of civil liberties”, which has united Kashmiri public as” nothing unites people like shared persecution”.
Another notes that “each death, of a protestor, has become a celebration of this defiance, triggering more protests, adding more grievances and increasing the alienation” of India, he added.Sartaj Aziz said that Jammu and Kashmir dispute is a stigma on the international conscience. Along with Palestine, these two issues are the longest unresolved items on the UN agenda, he deplored.
For the last seventy years, three successive generations of Kashmiri people have held aloft the aspirations for Azadi with zeal and commitment. Throughout this period, this relentless struggle has continued despite the harshest measures adopted by India, he added.
The presence of more than 700,000 occupation forces for around 12 million people in the IOK is a clear manifestation of the Indian policy to use state-terrorism as a tool to suppress the just struggle of the Kashmiri people, he said.
The ratio of civilian to armed forces personnel is the highest in the world, he added.
The heart of Kashmir dispute is the aspiration of (nearly 20 million) Kashmiri people for a life of peace, freedom and dignity. The sequence of tragedies is compounded by India’s denial of a free and impartial plebiscite, promised to Kashmiris, not only by the international community through Security Council Resolutions but also by the founding fathers of India, he said.
He also appreciated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the initiative taken by the Young Parliamentarians Forum to organize this seminar.