European parliamentarians, FM discuss deteriorating human rights situation in IoK

ISLAMABAD: A ten-member delegation of the European parliamentarians Tuesday called on Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and discussed the deteriorating human rights situation in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOK).

The delegation, which included Richard Corbett, leader of the Labour Party in Europe, Irina Von Wiese, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and MP Nazia Rehman, is on an eight-day visit to Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the Foreign Office in a press release said.

Highlighting the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, the foreign minister appreciated the efforts of the Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora and those involved in raising the issue of gross human rights violations in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOK) in the Europe and beyond.

He also stressed upon the need for consistent efforts to build upon the current momentum and sensitize the international community regarding the deplorable situation of human rights in IOK.

He said the successive reports by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), June 2018 and July 2019, the UK Parliament’s All Parties Parliamentary Kashmir Group (APPKG) report, as well as the hearing by European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights in Brussels lent credence to Pakistan’s stance on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and helped in raising awareness in the international community about the horrendous human rights situation in IOK.

He also reaffirmed Pakistan’s principled political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for the right to self-determination.

Qureshi also lauded efforts of the European parliamentarians and other delegation members in highlighting the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in Europe.