President in AJK: Kashmir holds the key to peace, says Zardari

Calls on AJK Assembly to take all stakeholders on board in constitutional reform process.

MUZAFFARABAD:

It is Kashmir that holds the key to peace and prosperity in South Asia, and no durable resolution of this issue is possible without the Kashmiri people themselves being made part of the dialogue process. This is what President Asif Ali Zardari said while addressing a joint sitting of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and Council on Wednesday.

President Zardari said Pakistan remains committed to finding a peaceful resolution for the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

“We will continue to extend to our Kashmiri brethren, all political, moral and diplomatic support. My coming here and addressing this august gathering is a manifestation of this commitment,” he said.

On that note, he mentioned a number of confidence building measures between Pakistan and India that have been implemented to facilitate Kashmiris living on both sides of the Line of Control. Paying tributes to the courage of the Kashmiri people, the President said they had struggled to achieve their right to self-determination for over six decades.

“Force and oppression has been used against them, but their voice could not be silenced and it never will be,” he said, adding that the ongoing protest movement was a new chapter in the struggle of Kashmiri people. Terming the movement indigenous and non-violent, President Zardari said unarmed Kashmiris, including women and children, were demanding their right to self-determination. He said international human rights organisations and even saner voices within India had been urging their government to give up the path of violence.

Referring to the way the former PPP-led coalition government had passed the 18th amendment, Zardari also called upon the AJK Assembly and Council to use the same consultative model in enacting reforms in their interim constitution. That constitution, the president said, also needed to be amended to meet the requirements of the day and the only way to ensure that this reform would be durable is to ensure that all stakeholders were on board.

President Zardari congratulated the AJK Assembly for setting up a bipartisan Committee to propose suitable amendments and assured them that the federal government would play its role in ushering in the reforms in accordance with the law.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2013.