No power can suppress Kashmiris' right to self-determination: AJK president

MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan on Sunday said that the people of Jammu and Kashmir had been struggling for their democratic rights including the right to self-determination for over two centuries and added that no power on earth can snatch the will of Kashmiri people for their legitimate and undeniable right for self-determination.

Addressing Biannual Convention of Pakistan Islamic Medical Association in Muzaffarabad today, Sardar Masood Khan said that said no solution to Kashmir dispute would be acceptable unless it had the sanction of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

The president said Kashmir was not the bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan; rather it was a trilateral issue, with Kashmiris being the principal party.

Sardar Masood said there is no ‘out of box’ solution to Kashmir issue and emphasized that the future of Kashmir should be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.

Earlier, Pakistan, on April 5, had pointed to the lack of implementation of Security Council resolutions on occupied Jammu and Kashmir as an example of the 15-member body’s inability to fulfill its responsibility.

Speaking in the General Assembly’s intergovernmental negotiations on Security Council reform, Pakistan’s Ambassador at the United Nations (UN), Maleeha Lodhi had said this was another compelling reason for reform of the world body.

“Solemn promises have been broken, on not one, but several resolutions on Kashmir, and undertakings reneged on”, she had said.