UK must play leadership role to resolve Kashmir issue: AJK president

He says Kashmir is an international issue, part of the UN agenda

MUZZAFARABAD: Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has prevailed upon the UK to come forward for a human cause, and play its leadership role in a peaceful settlement of Kashmir conflict.

"Kashmir is neither India's internal matter nor a bilateral issue between Pakistan and India," he said and added that if Kashmir had been the internal matter of India, it would never have been discussed in London, New York, Washington and Brussels today”.

He was addressing a Kashmir Conference organised by the Kashmiri and Pakistani community living in the 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 AJK president unequivocally declared that Kashmir was not a complicated issue, but a simple issue and its practicable solution is 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 not by 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.

British parliamentarians in uproar over brutal clampdown in occupied Kashmir

Sardar Masood Khan rejected that Kashmir was a bilateral dispute between Pakistan and India, and said that under the UN resolution, Kashmiri people, Pakistan, and India are the three parties to this dispute, and the final decision for the solution of this issue is 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 that 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 this 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 that India in order to perpetuate its illegal occupation of Kashmir, had surpassed even the Nazism of German dictator Adolf Hitler, the fascism of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and ethnic cleansing of Serbian butcher Slobodan Milošević.

Sardar Masood Khan 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 valor".

The AJK President said adding that 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 that being one of the world’s influential countries, Britain can help build world public opinion for the solution of Kashmir issue, and can raise its voice for the Kashmiri people besides playing an active role in the UN Security Council to get Kashmir issue resolved in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people.

Dismissing allegations of Indian national security adviser, the AJK president emphatically stated that 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.