EU concerned over violence
“We are very concerned about the violence in Kashmir and we have conveyed this to India through diplomatic channels,” the EU Ambassador to Pakistan Jan De Kok told reporters here on Wednesday.
The EU, for the first time, publicly aired its concern since the beginning of anti-India demonstrations in June this year in Kashmir, which have already killed over 100 people.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Belgian Ambassador Hans Christian Kint, the EU envoy urged the two countries to find peaceful ways to resolve the Kashmir problem. However, he made it clear that the 27-nation bloc did not intend to mediate between Pakistan and India on Kashmir issue.
Pakistan also stepped up diplomatic efforts to put pressure on India.
On Tuesday Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi urged the United States to pressure India over Kashmir, saying that recent unrest showed that New Delhi, and not Islamabad, was to blame for trouble in the Himalayan territory.
He is likely to meet his Indian counterpart SM Krishna later this month in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. Foreign office officials say the foreign minister will certainly take up the issue of renewed violence in Kashmir with his Indian counterpart.
Meanwhile, the Belgian Ambassador, whose country currently holds the EU Presidency, said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will attend the Asia-Europe summit to be held in Brussels on October 4 and 5. The summit will be attended by 48 heads of states and governments to discuss a host of issues confronting the two regions and the world at large, the ambassador added.
He said the meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan will also take place in Brussels on October 14 and 15 to discuss the country’s needs in the wake of devastating floods.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23rd, 2010.
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