ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf lawmaker Shireen Mazari said on Thursday the Kashmir dispute is not a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan but an international dispute ever since India brought it to the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) in 1948 under Chapter VI.
She expressed these views while addressing the National Assembly Secretariat under Speaker Ayaz Sadiq’s directions. Mazari, former head of Strategic Studies Department of Quaid-e-Azam University, talked on various dimensions of the Kashmir conflict.
Relying on the text of the UN Resolutions, she elaborated the legal status of Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir and added that Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir is well rooted in international law and UNSC resolutions affirming the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people. She highlighted that Pakistan strictly adheres to UN resolutions on Kashmir and urged the international community to take notice of Indian atrocities and handedness in Kashmir.
Dr Mazari said further India continues to flout UN resolutions, violate human rights with impunity and suppress people’s right to self-determination, does not deserve a permanent seat at the UNSC. To a question that Pakistan has been globally isolated as evident from the recent boycott of SAARC Summit by India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, she remarked that such boycott is not tantamount to Pakistan’s regional and global isolation.
Proposing viable solutions to the intractable Kashmir conflict, Mazari drew parallels between East Timor, Aland Island, Trieste, the Andorra models and the Kashmir issue. However, she suggested that the most viable model for resolution of Kashmir issue, in her opinion, is the Good Friday Agreement, which resolved the Northern Ireland conflict. She also underlined the need for a coherent policy on Kashmir.
The lecture was 1st part of a series of lectures by the expert lawmakers on specialized subjects. Regardless of party affiliations, the speaker launched an initiative of special lectures to transform the National Assembly Secretariat into a well-informed and learning organisation. The lecture on Kashmir conflict was attended by lawmakers and officers of the secretariat.