PTI govt not doing enough to resolve Kashmir issue: Ghani

Minister blames Centre for its ‘inefficient foreign policy’

KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Information, Archives and Labour Saeed Ghani has said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is raising the issue of Kashmir at every available forum. According to him, the sentiments of the Kashmiri people were hurt by Prime Minister Imran Khan’s support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the recent general elections of India. “Imran Khan Niazi, who had been desperate to contact Narendra Modi in the past, is not able to fight the case of the Kashmiri people in the manner which is needed in these circumstances,” said Ghani in a statement issued on Sunday. “Owing to the inefficient foreign policy of the incompetent Niazi regime, leaders around the world are not heeding us,” he added.

The minister said that none of Pakistan’s ‘friendly’ countries, including Islamic countries, were stepping up in Pakistan’s failure. He accused Khan of having failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership that was expected of him by Pakistanis and Kashmiris. “Was it not a massive failure that we did not know what the Indian government was thinking?”

Referring to Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, the minister said that she should not deface the Kashmir cause just to cement her ministry. In another jibe directed at her, he said that she should not talk about corruption when she herself has been facing references of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

“Victimisation in the name of accountability has become the trademark of the inefficient Niazi government,” remarked Ghani. NAB’s reputation has been damaged by the policies of the PTI regime, he claimed, adding that the resolution of the Kashmir issue during the PTI government’s rule appears to be a Sisyphean task.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2019.