UNSC urged to implement January 5 resolution on IIOJK

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has called upon the UN Security Council to ensure implementation of its resolution of January 5, 1949, and hold a plebiscite in the disputed territory to enable the Kashmiri people to decide their future.

In a message ahead of the right to self-determination day being observed on Tuesday, he said that the UN Security Council resolution of January 5, 1949, and other resolutions on the Kashmir conflict are still a reality which cannot be overlooked.

He, however, asserted that India has constantly been creating hurdles in the peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue by refusing to implement these resolutions. As a consequence, he maintained, that hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), and "two nuclear powers of the region i.e. Pakistan and India are at the threshold of a war today".

The AJK president said that India wanted to resolve the Kashmir issue through the use of force instead of peaceful political and diplomatic means, but the usurper must keep in mind that none of its tactics can deprive the Kashmiri people of their fundamental right to self-determination.

Declaring the right to self-determination as the mother of all human rights, he said that the principle of the right to self-determination is considered as the basis of all human rights and the human dignity across the world. "Therefore, no power on the earth can snatch this legitimate and undeniable right of the Kashmiri people."

Referring to the worst atrocities and trampling of human rights by the Indian army in IIOJK, he asserted that the situation had become highly alarming because of the inhuman treatment being meted out to the defenceless Kashmiri people and now the occupation army is poised to eliminate the whole of Kashmiri nation.

"The appalling and inhumane situation in Kashmir, caused by the Indian occupation army, has deteriorated to unheard levels of depravity," said Masood who has dynamically pleaded Kashmir cause at different global forum including United Nations, OIC and various world capitals for years during his diplomatic career before becoming the president of AJK.

"There would be the worst humanitarian disaster of the human history if notice of the Indian repression is not taken in time," he cautioned and stressed that it is the moral responsibility of the international community to exert pressure on India and compel it to stop repression in the disputed Himalayan valley and resolve the Kashmir issue through peaceful political and diplomatic means.

He also appealed to the international community to intervene and help save the Kashmiris from the appalling conditions they are facing because of their legitimate demand for the peaceful grant of the right to self-determination.

"After India's failure in implementing the UN Security Council resolutions, it is the responsibility of the world body to consider other options within the framework of its charters, and compel India to grant the right to self-determination to the Kashmiri people."