Kashmir issue poses a potent threat to stability in the region: Zardari

KARACHI: Former President Asif Ali Zardari has urged the international community to help resolve the Kashmir  issue, which poses a real and potent threat to the stability of the region, and called for restraint to avoid escalation and eschewing war drums in the existing standoff between India and Pakistan.

He called Kashmir as the unfinished agenda of the 1947 partition of the sub continent, and the longest un-disposed item on the agenda of the United Nations.

He maintained that war is no solution to the issues between two nuclear armed neighbors, and the only solution for a fair and honourable settlement on the aspirations of the people of Kashmir can only be reached through dialogue.

He cautioned that it will also not serve anyone if the existing tension between the two countries were allowed to spill over into other areas as well as bilateral relations.

He called on the need to defend the political and human rights of the Kashmiri people, and to recognise the need to bring a climate conducive to lasting peace and stability in the region and the welfare of the people.

He warned that rhetoric and war mongering is unhelpful, counterproductive, and is escalatory and not conciliatory. He said that the people of Pakistan are united in countering any threat to our integrity and security