‘Pakistan should appoint a special envoy on Kashmir’

Islamabad : Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s former High Commissioner to India has called for the appointment of a special envoy on Kashmir to project the true spirit of the Kashmir cause internationally.

Abdul Basit was speaking at a talk organised by the Institute of Regional Studies here.

Abdul Basit expressed his concern over the state of affairs in which India was portraying its willingness to negotiate with Pakistan as a concession to the latter.

He observed that India was not interested in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan either under the UNSC resolutions or under any other formula that would change the status quo on Kashmir. He had little hopes

about the restoration of the special status of Indian illegally occupied Jammu

and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) under in the Indian Constitution.

He said that Pakistan’s approach towards dialogue with India was historically aimed at resolving the contentious issues like Kashmir while Indian approach traditionally was to take up less contentious issues first.

He argued that the composite dialogue between 2004 and 2008 was an amalgamation of the two approaches in which both subjects were negotiated upon in tandem and a bit of progress was also made on some issues related to Kashmir such as freedom of movement and trade across the LoC.

He, however, said that since then, the relationship between the two countries was one step forward and two steps backwards in which setbacks tended to outpace progress.

He shared that 2016 was the worst year in the recent diplomatic history of India and Pakistan owing to incidents such as the capture of the Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav in Balochistan, the militant attack in Pathankot in India, the extrajudicial killing of Kashmiri freedom fighter Burhan Wani and the militant attack in Uri and its aftermath.

The same year, he said, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened to disrupt the flow of water in his speech on Aug 15 stating that water and blood could not flow together further worsening the trail of diplomatically unfavourable events.

Abdul Basit maintained that India had successfully propagated a narrative about Pakistan’s democracy being weak and the armed freedom struggle of Kashmiris as terrorism. He was of the view that Kashmiris had all the right to defend themselves against the Indian occupation with whatever means they chose.

He urged a long-term policy and patient diplomacy with India. He further called for strengthening the capacity of state institutions in Pakistan as integral foreign policy tools when dealing with India over Kashmir in the current times.

Nadeem Riyaz, President, IRS, thanked the participants in the end.