ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Wednesday said India was shy of dialogue with Islamabad but had multiplied atrocities in held Kashmir.
Speaking at a news conference here along with Parliamentary Special Committee on Kashmir Chairman Syed Fakhar Imam, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said India’s belligerence in Kashmir was alarming. “They (India) have sent additional 10,000 troops in held Kashmir. They are violating human rights. Pakistan will raise this issue across the world. India is not ready for dialogue and neither they (India) are ready to accept any mediation. This is a strange situation,” Qureshi said.
He said India wanted to change the constitutional status which Pakistan will not allow to happen. “We are planning to hold meetings with the foreign relations committees of parliaments around the world (to raise the Kashmir issue and expose India’s excesses),” he added. Qureshi said the regular violations along the Line of Control also spoke volumes about India’s hostile attitude and threatened the regional peace.
Earlier, the fifth meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Jammu and Kashmir was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foreign Minister briefed the members on the recent visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to the United States. In the briefing, the Foreign Minister highlighted that during his visit to the US, the Prime Minister exchanged views with President Donald Trump on a wide-range of issues, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
He stated that the Prime Minister raised the Kashmir issue effectively, highlighting the massive human rights violations in Kashmir. He added that Pakistan welcomed President Trump’s readiness to mediate in the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
The Foreign Minister further emphasised that the last one year had seen a growing momentum in activities focused on drawing international attention to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, particularly with the publication of the successive Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reports in June 2018 and July 2019 which extensively documented the human rights situation in Kashmir. The Foreign Minister, Chairman Kashmir Committee, and the Committee members agreed to continue to highlight ongoing atrocities in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir at every possible international forum. Later, at the news conference, Qureshi said the whole nation and parliament were on the same page over Kashmir dispute. He said that the representatives of all political parties attended the meeting, adding that the meeting discussed matters pertaining to Kashmir dispute’s historical background, present situation and future strategy. “Despite having a large number of army personnel in the valley, the Indian government is still deputing more forces,” he said. Qureshi went on to say that Pakistan has played an important role for peace but India tried aggression against Pakistan after Pulwama incident. Speaking on the occasion, Syed Fakhar Imam said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked President Trump to mediate in the longstanding Kashmir conflict with Pakistan. He said that everyone in India was in uproar over Trump’s claim that PM Modi asked him to mediate the Kashmir conflict but Modi did not deny Trump’s claim.
