Daily Times

UNITED NATIONS: Marking Kashmir Solidarity Day, Pakistan UN Ambassador Munir Akram said he was confident that the Kashmiri struggle will triumph in achieving self-determination and freedom from Indian occupation.

“Kashmir is an inalienable part of the body and soul of Pakistan,” he said in a message to the UN community released in New York on Thursday.

“The people of Pakistan have always stood resolutely with their Kashmir brethren against Indian oppression and aggression. They will continue to do so.”

The Jammu and Kashmir dispute, he said, is the unfinished agenda of self-determination in the South Asian subcontinent. In 1948, the UN Security Council resolutions declared that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of its people expressed through a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan’s strong advocacy of the rights of Kashmiris has revived global recognition of India’s grave and human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” Ambassador Akram said, adding it has made the world aware that a just resolution of the dispute was essential for durable peace and security in South Asia.

The UN Secretary-General has re-affirmed that the UN’s position on Jammu and Kashmir is based on the UN Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council, he noted.

During the last two years, the Security Council has met three times to consider the situation in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, it was pointed out. The UN General Assembly President, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other high-ranking UN human rights experts, special rapporteurs, and human rights organizations, have on numerous occasions expressed grave concern over India’s massive atrocities and crimes in occupied Kashmir.

The ambassador said that the Permanent Mission of Pakistan in New York will continue to utilize every opportunity to advocate and promote the just Kashmiri struggle for self-determination and to expose India’s cruel oppression and naked occupation of Jammu and Kashmir.