JKNF rejects British Labour Party leader’s stance on Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: Rejecting the British Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer’s contention regarding Jammu and Kashmir issue, veteran Hurriyat leader and senior vice chairman Jammu Kashmir National Front (JKNF) Altaf Hussain Wani has reminded him that Kashmir is a UN recognised international dispute that needs to be resolved peacefully on the basis of universally accepted principle of right to self-determination.

In a letter addressed to Keir Starmer’s, the JKNF leader said that Kashmir is in no way a constitutional matter for India, but it remains to be one of the oldest unresolved issues pending on the UN agenda. Referring to over a dozen UN resolutions, calling for holding a free, fair, impartial plebiscite in Kashmir Wani said that the UK was one of those great nations that have wholeheartedly voted in favour of these historic resolutions promising right to self-determination to the people of Kashmir. Earlier in his letter to Mrs. Patel of Hindu Forum Britain Sir Keir Starmer had stated that “Any constitutional issues in India are a matter for the Indian Parliament, and Kashmir is a bilateral issue for Pakistan and India to resolve peacefully”.

Expressing his astonishment over Starmer’s contentious remarks on the issue Wani regrettably noted that the stance adopted in this letter on Kashmir was not only contrary to the historic facts but it is also in conflict with Labour Party’s very own resolution calling for permission for humanitarian and international observers to visit Kashmir. He said that this historic resolution was adopted at the party’s conference in September last year soon after Narendar Modi’s government stripped Kashmir of its special status in August. Highlighting the Kashmiris’ decades’ long struggle against India’s forcible and illegal occupation of their motherland the JKNF leader said, at this critical juncture any attempt to distort the historical facts about the genesis of Kashmir dispute would be tantamount to rubbing salt on the bleeding wounds of Kashmiris who have lost three generations during the 70-year long struggle for right to self-determination.

While acknowledging and appreciating the Labour Party’s consistent support for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir conflict, Altaf Wani urged the Labour Party chief to revisit his new position on Kashmir and uphold the party’s proud legacy of recognizing and defending political and human rights of the people living in the disputed territories. Meanwhile, in a separate statement from Srinagar JKNF spokesman condemned in strong terms the stepped-up human rights violations in Kashmir. During the fresh acts of state terrorism, the spokesman said that occupation forces have martyred twenty youth in eight different cordon and search operations in the past two weeks in South Kashmir. Urging world human rights bodies to take stock of the situation in the region the JKNF spokesman said that Kashmiris struck in dual lockdown were made to suffer in the holy month of Ramadan.