Daily Times

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, Sunday urged the international community and human rights organizations to play their role in not only highlighting the plight of Kashmiri people in Indian Occupied Kashmir but also in facilitating a solution to the long-standing issue.

“The case is in our favour; It’s only a matter of the right timing in international politics and economics,” he said, citing UN Security Council resolutions that grant the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people to decide their future through a UN-supervised plebiscite.

“History is on our side,” the Ambassador told a large gathering at the Pakistan Embassy held to commemorate Kashmir Black Day.

The Day is commemorated annually on October 27 to mark the day in 1947 when India, without any legal justification, forcibly took control of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. “The historical record is an asset for us, and it needs to be referenced and upheld,” Ambassador Sheikh said.

“Our job is to keep the flame alive, not to yield under the weight of global politics or economics.”

As the issues of Kashmir and Palestine have a common genesis, Ambassador Sheikh said it was important that these cases should be taken together, as they will reinforce each other.”

“After the US election, there is a lot of expectation that the ongoing brutalities in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories will move toward a solution,” the Ambassador said. “We believe this will happen. This would again be an opportunity to raise greater awareness about the issue and the need to address it,” he added.

At the outset, messages from President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar were read on the occasion.

The Secretary-General of World Kashmir Awareness Forum, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai; Director of All Neighbors International, Ilyas Masih; Pastor William Archer of the Humanitarian and Theologian at Potomac Valley Church; former ICNA President Zahid Bukhari; and Dr. Imtiaz Khan, Professor at George Washington University, also spoke on the occasion, highlighting the Kashmiris’ legitimate struggle for self-determination.

Video messages from Senator Mushahid Hussain; Secretary-General of the US Council of Muslim Organizations (UCMO), Oussama Jammal; Dr. Farhan Chak, Professor of Political Science at Durham University, Canada; and a special documentary on the struggle of the Kashmiri people were also presented.