PM Kakar says 'Kashmir key to India-Pakistan peace'

NEW YORK: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar said Friday that the resolution of the Kashmir dispute is the key to resolve all issues between India and Pakistan.

PM Anwaarul Haq Kakar addressed the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly today.

The premier said that the establishment of peace is necessary to gain development and prosperity. Pakistan wants good ties with all neighbours including India.

“The resolution of the Kashmir dispute is crucial to resolve all conflicts between Pakistan and India. The UN should implement its resolutions to resolve the Kashmir dispute.”

Kakar called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) to secure the implementation of its resolutions on Kashmir, which, he said, was the key to peace between Pakistan and India.

“India has evaded implementation of the Security Council’s resolutions which call for the ‘final disposition’ of Jammu and Kashmir to be decided by its people through UN-supervised plebiscite,” he told the UN General Assembly in its iconic hall with several world leaders, top diplomats and officials in the audience.

Since August 5, 2019, PM Kakar said India, with 900,000 troops in the occupied Kashmir, imposed extended lockdowns and curfews; jailed all the genuine Kashmir leaders; violently suppressed peaceful protests; resorted to extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris in fake “encounters” and so-called “cordon and search operations”, and imposed collective punishments, destroying entire villages.

“Access to occupied Kashmir, demanded by the UN High Commission for Human Rights and over a dozen Special Rapporteurs, has been denied by New Delhi,” he told delegates from around the world.

In this regard, the prime minister called for the reinforcement of the UN Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), stressing that global powers should convince New Delhi to accept Pakistan’s offer of mutual restraint on strategic and conventional weapons.

In his maiden address to the 193-member Assembly’s high-level session, PM Kakar also focused on a range of issues, including the cross-border terrorist attacks against Pakistan by Afghanistan-based TTP; the Palestine tragedy; the threat posed by far-right groups like Hindutva-inspired extremists; Islamophobia; global economic crises stemming from Covid, conflict and climate change; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Pakistan’s efforts to recover from its economic challenges, and the UNSC reform.