ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has said that Kashmir issue was not just a territorial dispute but a question of people’s inherent right to self-determination. In his message on the eve of Kashmir Solidarity Day to be commemorated across Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir on February 5 (today) to express solidarity with the Kashmiri brethren, the speaker said that brutal use of force and propaganda cannot gag the voice of freedom nor it can alter Pakistan’s resolute and principled stance on the issue of Kashmir. Referring to the future of South Asia and Kashmir dispute, the speaker remarked that peace in South Asia will remain elusive unless so-called largest democracy in the world stops unleashing brute force against the people of Kashmir. He added that it was an irony that the international community remained a silent spectator while India reneged on UN resolutions and launched violence, fake encounters, enforced disappearances, rape, murders, and the use of pellet guns against defenseless population as India’s officially sanctioned policy in the Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He urged the United Nations as well as the international community to ensure the implementation of its own resolutions on Kashmir and ensure its own relevance in the resolution of international disputes. Highlighting Pakistan’s steadfast support to the freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people, the speaker reinforced Pakistan’s unwavering historic stance on Kashmir and added that the people and government of Pakistan will continue to provide all kinds of moral, diplomatic and political support to the Kashmiri people at every forum. He highlighted that the Speakers’ Conference hosted by National Assembly of Pakistan in Islamabad in December, 2017, in its declaration had stated that the Kashmir issue needed peaceful resolution in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions to ensure global and regional peace and stability. He said that parliament of Pakistan was fully committed to peaceful resolution of Kashmir issue and had passed a number of resolutions against the atrocities of Indian armed forces in Held Kashmir and for right of self-determination of the people of the valley in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. He remarked that the forceful occupation of Kashmir was against the modern norms of nation state and people’s basic right to self-determination – the right to form government as per people’s aspirations free from foreign interference. Published in Daily Times, February 5th 2018.