As the Government of India decides to meet political leaders of Jammu and Kashmir on June 24, Pakistan issued a warning on Saturday, saying that it will oppose any move by India to “divide or change the demography of Kashmir”.
The GoI extended an invitation to National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti and other top political leaders of Jammu and Kashmir for a meeting with Narendra Modi on June 24.
In an official statement issued by Pakistan’s foreign office, the country’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that India must refrain from taking any “further illegal steps” in Kashmir after its actions of August 5, 2019.
The statement from Pakistan came on a day when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited as many as 14 political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir for a high-level meeting in New Delhi next Thursday, which is expected to set the road map for holding assembly elections in the Union territory.
Qureshi, the country’s foreign minister, said that Pakistan strongly opposes India’s actions of August 5, 2019, and had spoken at several international conventions, including the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), on the same. True peace in South Asia, he said, can only be peacefully achieved when the Kashmir issue is resolved in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Pakistan has even apprised the UNSC president and the UN secretary-general over India’s possible moves regarding Kashmir, Shah Mahmood Qureshi said, adding that the country won’t tolerate any potential move by India that seeks to divide and bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir and change the demographic structure of the Union territory.
On Thursday, addressing a weekly press briefing, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said that India must revisit its “unlawful and destabilising actions” in Jammu and Kashmir and ensure full compliance with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.
He added that Pakistan would continue to resolutely oppose Indian attempts to change the demographic structure and status of JK as a disputed territory.
The FO spokesperson said that Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had also written a letter to the president of the UNSC and the United Nations secretary general a day earlier to apprise the UN leadership of Pakistan’s concerns on these developments.
Qureshi had conveyed Pakistan’s “grave concern” to the UNSC on reports indicating that India might impose “further illegal and unilateral measures” in JK, including “division, bifurcation and additional demographic changes in the territory.”
In his press briefing, the FO spokesperson said that the foreign minister had been regularly writing letters to the Security Council and the UN secretary general to keep the UN fully informed of the “grave situation” in JK.
He said Pakistan had also been reminding the UN Security Council of its responsibility for a peaceful and just settlement of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions.
“We remain firm in our commitment to provide all possible support to the people of JK in their just struggle for the realisation of their inalienable right to self-determination,” the FO spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that Pakistan had deep concern over the recent reports indicating “Indian machinations for further division, bifurcation and demographic changes”
“We call upon the international community, including the United Nations, international human rights and humanitarian organisations, global media, and world parliaments to take immediate cognizance of the situation,” he said.
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