UK urged to play role for peaceful settlement of Kashmir dispute

MIRPUR/LONDON: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan urged Britain on Saturday to come forward for a human cause and play its leadership role in peaceful settlement of Kashmir conflict.

“Kashmir is neither India’s internal matter nor a bilateral issue between Pakistan and India,” the AJK President categorically said and added had Kashmir been an internal matter of India, it would never have been discussed in London, New York, Washington and Brussels, stated an official message released by AJK presidential secretariat on Saturday evening.

He was addressing a Kashmir Conference organised by the Kashmiri and Pakistani community living in Reading area of South London. The event was addressed besides UK MPs, elected representatives of the local council and important Kashmiri and Pakistani leaders, by Member of AJK Legislative Assembly Abdur Rashid Turabi, President Tehrik-e-Kashmir UK Faheem Kayani and other speakers, the message said.

The AJK President unequivocally declared Kashmir was not a complicated issue, but a simple issue and its practicable solution was to give right to Kashmiris to determine their political future with free will. “Seventy years ago, the UN Security Council had declared that Kashmir issue would be resolved by not bullet but ballot, and the Kashmiri people will be provided the right to resolve this issue once and for all in a free and democratic manner,” he emphasised.

Sardar Masood rejected Kashmir was a bilateral dispute between Pakistan and India, and said under the UN resolution, Kashmiri people, Pakistan, and India were the three parties to the dispute, and the final decision for the solution of the issue was to be taken by the Kashmiri people themselves. “Kashmir is an international issue still existing on the UN agenda as an unresolved issue,” he added. The AJK President said the people of occupied Kashmir through their unprecedented sacrifices, Pakistan through its principled stand, and Azad Kashmir as the base camp of liberation struggle, had kept the issue alive for the last seven decades, while Pakistan had to face at least three wars for its support to the Kashmiri people.

On the other hand, he maintained India in order to perpetuate its illegal occupation of Kashmir, had surpassed even the Nazism of German dictator Adolf Hitler, fascism of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and ethnic cleansing of Serbian butcher Slobodan Miloševic.

Sardar Masood urged the Pakistani and Kashmiri expatriates to utilise their energies to counter and foil India’s aggression and the conspiracy to turn Kashmir into its colony.

“India has imposed a war on Pakistan which we are to resist with courage and valour,” The AJK President said adding: “We must rise up against Hindutva which poses a serious danger to not only the Kashmiri people but all Muslims of South Asia and minorities, including Christian living in India.”

He expressed the hope being one of the world’s influential countries, Britain could help build world public opinion for the solution to Kashmir issue, and could raise its voice for the Kashmiri people besides playing an active role in the UN Security Council to get the Kashmir issue resolved in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people.

Dismissing allegations of Indian national security adviser, the AJK President emphatically stated with the help of Pakistan or Azad Kashmir neither any terrorism was taking place in occupied Kashmir nor was any terrorist going across the Line of Control. “Such allegations by India are designed to hide its own crimes against humanity from the international community,” he added.