Dar urges OIC members to maintain unified position on Kashmir at UN

NEW YORK: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Wednesday highlighting the continuing restrictions on political and civic space in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir urged the OIC member states to maintain a unified position on Jammu and Kashmir at the United Nations and other international fora.

The deputy prime minister, in his address to the Ministerial Meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir on the sidelines of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly here, apprised the participants of the Indian attempts to alter its demographic, political, and cultural character.

He thanked the OIC Secretary-General, members of the Contact Group, the OIC Special Envoy on Jammu and Kashmir, and the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission for their steadfast and principled support to the Kashmiri people.

The deputy prime minister recalled that Jammu and Kashmir remained an internationally recognized dispute on the agenda of the UN Security Council and stressed that no domestic legislation, judicial verdict, electoral exercise, or demographic manipulation could substitute for the Kashmiri people’s inalienable right to self-determination.

He reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to a just and peaceful settlement of the dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.