Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday said Kashmir was witnessing a “new wave of freedom movement” and urged the diplomats to apprise the world that Kashmir was “not an internal matter” of India.
Addressing the concluding session of the three-day Envoys Conference organised by foreign ministry here, Sharif said that the Kashmir issue is the main pillar of Islamabad's foreign policy.
“ Resolution of the lingering dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people is the corner stone of Pakistan’s foreign policy, ” he added.
Pakistan PM's remark comes on a day when Home Minister Rajnath Singh is in Islamabad to attend the SAARC Interior Ministers’ Conference.
“Today Kashmir is witnessing a new wave of freedom movement,” said Sharif , a statementwhich is likely to provoke a reaction from New Delhi.. “This movement is running into the bloods of third generation of Kashmiri people and the world has itself seen its intensity in the wake of July 8,” Sharif said, referring to the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in Kashmir.
“The Kashmiri youth are writing new chapters of sacrifices to get the right to self determination,” he said. “They have lost eyesight due to bullets but the desire for freedom is guiding them to the destination,” he added. He asked Pakistani envoys to apprise the world that “the Kashmir was not an internal matter of India”.
“The ambassador should make the world feel that Kashmir is not the internal problem of India, as India already accepted it as dispute territory and the UN also declared it as a dispute between India and Pakistan,” he said.
The conference was attended by envoys of Pakistan posted at Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Afghanistan, UN New York, UN Geneva, Vienna, Brussels and Moscow among others. Sharing his vision with the envoys, Sharif said that all bilateral issues with other regional countries should be solved though talks in a peaceful way.
We cannot afford a conflict. If we became part of any conflict, then our progress in the social and economic fields would be affected,” he said. He said Pakistan wants peace in the world on the basis of honour, dignity and equality.
“But our desire for friendly ties should not be considered as weakness. We believe in mutual interests, respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of others,” Kashmir said.
Notedly, the United Nations on Tuesday clarified that the role of its military observer group in India and Pakistan is limited to the LoC only.
The clarification was issued by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Stephane Dujarric yesterday, a day after the UN chief's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters that the UN will continue to monitor the situation in Kashmir, including through "our monitoring group" UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).
