Islamabad - Disillusioned with fascist Modi regime, Prime Minister Imran Khan says now there’s no point in talking to bellicose India, and he has urged the international community to take action to prevent an impending genocide of Kashmiris.
He made the fresh call to the international community on Thursday when he also met with Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa to discuss matters of national security and situation in Indian occupied Kashmir.
The prime minister also chaired a meeting of the Kashmir Core Group the same day, reaffirming Pakistan’s abiding solidarity with the Kashmiri brethren in siege.
“Today, on the 1st International Day for Victims of Violence based on Religion or Belief, we call attention to the plight of millions of Kashmiris living under brutal Indian Occupation, abuse & violence, deprived of all fundamental rights & freedoms,” he tweeted earlier in the day.
The prime minister noted that the Indian occupation forces have even denied them their right to observe religious practices, even barred them from celebrating Eidul Azha.
In a message regarding the international day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “On this day, we reaffirm our unwavering support for the victims of violence based on religion and belief. And we demonstrate that support by doing all in our power to prevent such attacks and demanding that those responsible are held accountable.”
Earlier, Prime Minister Khan had sought to nudge the international community into action by saying that “severe repercussions and reactions” would ensue if it “silently witnesses another Srebrenica-type massacre & ethnic cleansing of Muslims in IOK”.
“Will [the] world silently witness another Srebrenica-type massacre & ethnic cleansing of Muslims in IOK? I want to warn international community if it allows this to happen, it will have severe repercussions & reactions in the Muslim world setting off radicalisation & cycles of violence,” Imran wrote in a tweet earlier this month.
The premier was referring to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre – also known as the Srebrenica genocide – in which thousands of Bosniaks had been killed by Serb military and paramilitary forces in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian war.
NO MORE TALKS WITH INDIA
Imran Khan has been a staunch advocate of resolving all issues with India through peaceful means. Since his assuming the premiership, he has made a number of peace gestures towards New Delhi and repeatedly expressed his desire for dialogue.
But now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has shown their true colours by scrapping autonomy of Kashmir on August 5 and launching a clampdown on Kashmiris since then, he says enough is enough.
Khan now accuses his Indian counterpart of harbouring intentions to change the demographic character of the Muslim-majority region, which he sees as just a beginning in the quest of the right-wing extremist regime for a Hindu dominated subcontinent.
“There is no point in talking to them. I mean, I have done all the talking. Unfortunately, now when I look back, all the overtures that I was making for peace and dialogue, I think they took it for appeasement,” he said in an interview with The New York Times at the Prime Minister’s office in Islamabad. “There is nothing more that we can do,” he added.
The newspaper’s correspondent, Salman Masood, wrote that his interview was the Pakistani leader’s first with an international news organization aimed at projecting Islamabad’s anger over the grave situation in Kashmir stemming from India’s annexation of the disputed state — “and it appeared to reflect his frustration at what he views as India’s intransigence.”
The Times noted that PM Khan has repeatedly denounced India’s Hindu nationalist government for terminating the autonomy of Kashmir in an abrupt move. India, it noted, deployed thousands of troops to quell any possible unrest and severed nearly all communications in the poor Himalayan region, the flash point for two wars between India and Pakistan.
The newspaper pointed out that the prime minister and his cabinet ministers have likened the New Delhi government to Nazi Germany and asserted that a genocide is unfolding in the territory.
PM Khan described Modi as a fascist and Hindu supremacist who intends to eradicate Kashmir’s mostly Muslim population and populate the region with Hindus.
“The most important thing is that eight million people’s lives are at risk. We are all worried that there is ethnic cleansing and genocide about to happen,” the Pakistani leader said.
Imran Khan spoke to The Times a day after he said he spoke by phone with President Donald Trump and told him of a “potentially very explosive situation” between his country and India.
Last month, PM Khan visited Washington and met with Trump, who said he would be willing to mediate the conflict. His offer was welcomed by PM Khan but has not been accepted by India.
Trump reiterated his offer on Tuesday, telling NBC News: “I’ll do the best I can to mediate or do something.”
In the interview, Khan expressed concern that India might undertake a deceptive “false-flag operation” in Kashmir to try to justify military action against Pakistan. And Pakistan, he said, would be forced to respond.
“And then you are looking at two nuclear-armed countries eyeball to eyeball, and anything can happen,” he said. “My worry is that this can escalate and for two nuclear-armed countries, it should be alarming for the world what we are facing now.”
Shortly after taking office last summer, the Times pointed out that PM Khan reached out to India in an attempt to revive talks between the countries on a wide range of issues, including Kashmir. But Indian officials rejected PM Khan’s efforts with a longstanding response that they will negotiate only after Pakistan cuts ties to militant groups. Pakistan denies it has links to such groups.
“With Pakistani-Indian relations in crisis, it is difficult to see how, in the foreseeable future, the countries can resume the on-again, off-again talks that have punctuated their relationship since they were partitioned in 1947,” the Times said.
PM Khan demanded that United Nations peacekeepers and observers be allowed in Indian-occupied Kashmir as he repeatedly insisted during the interview that Modi intended to carry out a genocide of Kashmiri Muslims.
KASHMIR CORE GROUP MEETING
The Kashmir Core Group which met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday reaffirmed Pakistan’s abiding solidarity with the Kashmiri brethren siege.
According a statement issued by Prime Minister Office, main focus of the meeting was on Pakistan’s extensive political and diplomatic outreach and efforts to raise the international community’s awareness about the dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir and the serious risks for peace and security posed by India’s illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019.
The meeting strongly condemned the continued lockdown of millions of Kashmiris since August 5, 2019 and India’s repression and growing atrocities.
It was noted that the international community including the UN Security Council, international human rights organizations, international humanitarian organizations and the international media had taken cognizance of the serious situation and calls were growing on India to immediately lift the curfew and other restrictions and alleviate the sufferings of the Kashmiri people.
The meeting agreed to further reinforce Pakistan’s efforts in the political, diplomatic, legal and media domains to highlight the Kashmir cause worldwide and to enable the people of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir realize their right to self-determination.
The meeting was attended by the Foreign Minister, Minister for Law & Justice, Chairman Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Attorney General and other senior officials.