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Pakistan urges India to settle Kashmir dispute

* Envoy Hussain Sial says Pakistan extends political, moral, diplomatic support to right to self-determination by everyone entitled to that right

UNITED NATIONS: Drawing the international community’s attention to human rights violations by India and suppression of the people in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK), Pakistan on Monday called for a negotiated settlement of the decades-old dispute.

“A peaceful solution of this dispute is imperative for durable peace, stability and progress in South Asia,” Pakistan’s acting permanent representative to the UN told the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural questions. “We must seize the opportunity for a negotiated settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue with the full involvement of the Kashmiri people in accordance with their aspirations,” Amjad Hussain Sial said in a debate on the ‘Right of People to Self-Determination’.

Support: Sial said Pakistan extends political, moral and diplomatic support to the exercise of the right to self-determination by all other people entitled to that right. The free exercise of that right, however, had been denied in some parts of the world, such as IHK and Palestine, he said. He said six decades had elapsed since the Kashmiris were promised the exercise of the right to self-determination by UN Security Council resolutions, which pronounced that the status of IHK would be decided through a democratic plebiscite.

Sial said the genuine aspirations of the people of Kashmir had been thwarted by India, and instead the unfortunate Kashmiris who had attached high hopes to the dialogue process between India and Pakistan were being subjected to widespread human rights violations and suppression. He said Pakistan had remained committed to the composite dialogue process with India. Indian delegate AK Hariprasad said the right to self-determination could not be used for subversive political agendas, and could not be extended to components of groups within independent sovereign states. He regretted Pakistan’s reference to IHK, claiming that the two regions were an integral part of India and had participated regularly in India’s elections.

Pakistan should instead focus on taking action against terrorists and their support base, and to create conditions for a meaningful dialogue, he said. Exercising his right of reply, Pakistan’s delegate Suljuk Mustansar Tarar rejected the Indian claim that IHK was an integral part of India, as the Himalayan region had internationally been recognised as a disputed territory. app

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