When last week Shah Mehmood Qureshi left for Niger to attend the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) foreign ministers conference few expected Pakistan would achieve any success in eliciting support for the core issue of its concern: Kashmir. Various media reports had said Kashmir was not even on the conference agenda. All naysayers have been proven wrong. In a major diplomatic success for Pakistan the OIC's members unanimously adopted a comprehensive resolution, reaffirming their support for the Kashmir cause. It asked India to refrain from taking any step to alter the demographic structure of the disputed territory, and condemned in the "strongest possible terms" human rights violations perpetrated by Indian security forces in occupied Kashmir and other such instances of terrorism that, it said, have been the source of unspeakable suffering for the innocent Kashmiri people. Denouncing extra-judicial killings during "fake encounters" and "search-and-cordon" operations and demolition of houses and private properties as a form of collective punishment, the resolution demands India adhere to its international human rights obligations and allow an OIC fact-finding mission to visit the illegally occupied region and implement recommendations of the two reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The resolution also points out that any political or electoral process held under foreign occupation cannot be a substitute to the exercise of the right to self-determination.
This strongly-worded denunciation of its illegal and immoral actions in Kashmir has deeply perturbed New Delhi. Its Ministry of External Affairs promptly issued a statement rejecting what it described as "the factually incorrect, gratuitous and unwarranted reference to India in resolutions adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the 47th CFM session in Niamey, Republic of Niger, held on 27-28 November 2020." Apparently, the OICs' unqualified support to Pakistan's case came as a surprise to India. After all, some of the organization's influential members in the Gulf region have been feting and honouring its Muslim-hating Prime Minister Narendra Modi with their respective nations' highest awards for the furtherance of their own economic and other interests. They, of course, are within their rights to pursue policies that they deem profitable as long as they do not tread on other important friends' toes. Doing that entails a price that they have not wanted to pay.
It may be recalled that last August, frustrated by OIC's foot-dragging on calling a meeting of its foreign ministers on Kashmir, Qureshi had warned those concerned that if that did not happen Pakistan would be compelled to call a meeting of the Islamic counties that were ready to stand with it and support the oppressed Kashmiris. The countries known to be willing to take that stand have considerable political and economic clout to carry many other states along. That meant the leadership of the OIC could shift elsewhere, something unacceptable to its dominant members, who, in fact, did not hesitate to let their displeasure be known in a pretty strong reaction. Happily, however, the present development shows quiet diplomacy has helped ratchet down tensions. The OIC must also deliver on its original promise to "protect the interest of the Muslim world" by asking India to allow its fact finding mission to visit the illegally Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and also by insisting that it accept the Kashmiri people's UNSC-endorsed right to self-determination.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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