Upping the ante, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today said Kashmir was witnessing a “new wave of freedom movement” and asked the diplomats to apprise the world that Kashmir was “not an internal matter” of India.
Addressing the concluding session of the three-day envoys conference organised by the foreign ministry here, Sharif said, “Resolution of the lingering dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people is the corner stone of Pakistan’s foreign policy.”
“Today Kashmir is witnessing a new wave of freedom movement,” Sharif said, needling India on a day when home minister Rajnath Singh arrived here to attend the SAARC Interior Ministers’ Conference.
“This movement is running into the bloods of the third generation of Kashmiri people and the world has itself seen its intensity in the wake of July 8,” Sharif said, referring to the killing of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani in Kashmir. “The Kashmiri youth is writing new chapters of sacrifices to get the right to self determination,” he said. “They have lost eyesight due to bullets but the desire for freedom is guiding them to the destination. The ambassadors should make the world feel that Kashmir is not the internal problem of India as India has accepted it as disputed territory, so has the UN,” Sharif said.
Sharing his vision with the envoys, Sharif said that all bilateral issues with other regional countries should be solved though talks in a peaceful way. “We cannot afford a conflict. If we became part of any conflict, then our progress in the social and economic fields would be affected,” he said.
He said Pakistan wants peace in the world on the basis of honour, dignity and equality. “But our desire for friendly ties should not be considered as weakness. We believe in mutual interests, respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of others,” he said.
Earlier, the prime minister’s advisor on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, told the concluding session that it was wrong to portray that Pakistan was facing isolation.
Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, said the conference acquired special importance in view of the prime minister’s directives to take stock of the current situation. She said, “Kashmir remains the top agenda of the conference in view of the indigenous Kashmir uprising in the backdrop.”
Lodhi said that in line with the prime minister’s directive, she would step-up diplomatic campaign to highlight alleged human rights violations in Kashmir at the UN.
