Pakistan urges global community to help Kashmiris exercise their right of self-determination

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday urged the international community, especially the United Nations, to live up to their promises and take necessary measures to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise the right of self-determination as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

In a message on the eve of “Right to Self-Determination Day” observed on Friday, caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, reaffirmed Pakistan’s continued commitment to extend its unstinted moral, political and diplomatic support to the struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir for the realisation of their right to self-determination in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

Jilani said that the 5th January is annually observed as the Right to Self-Determination Day for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. On this day in 1949, the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) adopted a resolution that guarantees a free and fair plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, to enable the Kashmiri people to realise their right to self-determination.

He said that the right to self-determination is a fundamental principle of international law. Every year, he added that the UN General Assembly adopts a resolution that reaffirms the legal right of people to decide their own destiny.

“It expresses unequivocal support for the realisation of the right to self-determination for people under foreign occupation. Regrettably, the Kashmiri people have not been able to exercise this inalienable right,” it added.

He stated that India is taking a number of steps to consolidate its occupation of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), which is an internationally-recognised disputed territory.

Following its illegal and unilateral actions of 5th August 2019, he added that India’s efforts have been aimed at engineering demographic and political changes so that the Kashmiris are reduced to a disempowered community in their own land. “The Indian Supreme Court’s recent verdict is yet another manifestation of India’s desire to undermine the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people,” he added.

Jilani further stated India is also subjecting the Kashmiri people to systematic human rights violations, adding that it has created an environment of fear to crush dissent in IIOJK.

“It is time for the international community, especially the United Nations, to live up to their promises and take necessary measures to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to exercise the right of self-determination as enshrined in the United Nations Security Council resolutions. It must also call for an immediate cessation of human rights violations, and the restoration of the rights and fundamental freedoms of the Kashmiri people,” Jilani further stated.

For its part, he added that Pakistan will continue to extend its unstinted moral, political and diplomatic support to the struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir for the realisation of their right to self-determination in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024