Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday said Kashmir is smoldering like a volcano and needs urgent attention.

He was addressing a joint parliamentary session summoned to discuss Indian aggression and Kashmir dispute.

Nawaz said Pakistan wanted to resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir through negotiations. He, however, said Pakistan’s desire for peace should not be taken as a weakness.

The PM said the Indian government could not crush and suppress passion for freedom that every Kashmiri has, with violence, curfews, media blackout and oppressing tactics.

The premier said that Burhan Wani’s martyrdom drove the movement of freedom of Indian-held Kashmir to a decisive turning point. He acknowledged the fact that the opposition was standing with the government over the Kashmir dispute amid escalated tensions at the border with India. There were no government and opposition sides in parliament and every lawmaker was a Pakistani first when it came to defending the country, he added.

The PM reiterated that the government was against any move that harmed peace and stability in the region. India-Pakistan terms could not move towards betterment until the Kashmir dispute was solved, he added.

Referring to Indian agenda, he said that the movement could not be stopped by depriving the protesters of their eyesight with pellet guns and killing hundreds of others in cold blood.

He said atrocities committed by over 700,000 Indian troops could not suppress the ongoing struggle in Kashmir. The premier said bloodshed had highlighted the fact that resolutions of the United Nations on Kashmir were yet to be implemented. The Kashmiris were awaiting the United Nations for at least seven decades to come true to its promises, he added.

Nawaz said the Indian agenda posed a danger to the stability in the region. The government had attempted to bring India to dialogue table numerous times but its unfruitful attitude jeopardised all the attempts, he added.

The opposition legislators termed Pakistan a diplomatically weak country. They added that the country had no foreign minister to highlight the Kashmir issue at international forums.

Opposition leader in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah said that India was adamant to keep the Kashmiris oppressed. He said the government needed to increase pressure on India for freedom of Kashmiris. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first premier of India, was willing to resolve the outstanding dispute between Pakistan and India with all seriousness, Shah claimed. He criticised the Indian government for taking steps to isolate Pakistan in the world.

Questioning Pakistan’s foreign policy, he said that the weak diplomacy was the reason Pakistan lost the already won war at the conference table in Tashkent. He also lambasted the ‘cricket diplomacy’ and ‘Agra photo session’ as weak diplomacy stunts. The PPP leader flayed the Afghan government for not paying back for Pakistan’s decades-long hospitality by refusing to participate in SAARC conference. He professed that Nawaz had carried out nuclear tests which resonated with the deterrence ideology of late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. However, he cleared that the Prime Minister carried out successful nuclear tests on the work done over technology during Pakistan People’s Party’s tenure. Shah pointed out that Nawaz Sharif should have disclosed the nefarious designs of India during his speech at the UN General Assembly.

Kashmir Committee Chairman Fazlur Rehman said Pakistan failed to present the Kashmir issue adequately. He said India was constantly trying to avoid talks on the longstanding dispute, while its forces were continuing to massacre innocent Kashmiris. The cleric said Pakistan would be bound to use its nukes if it came to its survival, hoping that tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours would not escalate to that level. He criticised Modi for threatening to cut water supply to Pakistan by revising Indus Water Treaty that has been in place for at least 56 years.

Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Sirajul Haq said that the nation was united over the Kashmir dispute, but it required bold leadership to take appropriate measures to free Kashmir.

Qaumi Watan Party lawmaker Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao said India was diplomatically very strong as compared to Pakistan, which according to him was the main reason that the world community observed silence over atrocities of Indian forces in Indian-held Kashmir.