ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): President Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry has said that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and member states of the forum should join forces and play their much-needed role to help resolve the longstanding Kashmir and Palestine issues.
He expressed these views in a detailed meeting with the OIC delegation that met him under the leadership of Ambassador Yousef Mohammad S. Aldobeay, Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and OIC’s Special Envoy for Jammu and Kashmir.
UNSC resolutions on Kashmir
Speaking on the occasion, the President referred to India’s relentless repression of political and human rights in Kashmir, and stressed the need for intensifying efforts to resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute peacefully in accordance with the UNSC resolutions.
He said that there was a dire need that the Muslim countries should use their diplomatic, economic and political clout to stop the bloodbath in Kashmir and Palestine.
He said people in both regions have suffered for more than 70 years under brutal foreign occupation.
Barrister Chaudhry commended the OIC’s steadfast support to Kashmiris’ just cause, stating that the Muslim body has always supported Kashmiris’ struggle for right to self-determination.
Terming India and Israel as two sides of the same coin, the President said the fascist regimes have been engaged in systematic genocide of Palestinian and Kashmiri people.
India’s relentless repression of political and human rights in Kashmir, he said, involved killing and maiming Kashmiris through heavy militarisation, arbitrary arrests and detention of political activists.
Kashmir, he said, has been turned into an open air prison where people have been deprived of all the basic rights and essential freedoms.
India’s imperialistic presence and massive militarisation in the occupied Kashmir is the biggest threat to the region’s peace and stability, he added.
The President also slammed India’s unilateral decision to abrogate Article 370, terming it a flagrant violation of UNSC resolutions and other international human rights treaties.
