ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s lawmakers backed Kashmiri people with a single voice, as the National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution declaring that South Asia cannot have lasting peace until the Kashmir dispute is settled fairly.
The resolution tied regional stability directly to the Kashmir question. A just and peaceful settlement, it said, must rest on UN Security Council resolutions and on what the Kashmiris themselves want, as reported by 24NewsHD.
It was tabled jointly by Minister for Kashmir Affairs Engineer Amir Muqam and Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir.
NA paid tribute to generations of Kashmiris who, the resolution said, have shown extraordinary courage and resilience and have made enormous sacrifices over the years. It condemned what it described as continuing, systematic human rights violations in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Lawmakers also reaffirmed Pakistan’s moral, political and diplomatic support for Kashmiris in what the resolution called their just and legitimate struggle. The Assembly firmly rejected India’s unilateral steps of 5 August 2019 and the measures that followed. It said these were meant to change the internationally recognized disputed status and the demographic character of the territory.
It called on India to end the human rights violations in the occupied territory, stop efforts to alter its demographic makeup, release jailed Kashmiri leaders, and allow international human rights organizations and independent observers unhindered access.
The resolution urged the international community, the United Nations in particular, to keep its commitments to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It asked for concrete steps to implement Security Council resolutions and to hold India accountable for abuses in the occupied region. The House said the final status of Kashmir must be decided in line with those resolutions and the freely expressed will of its people.
The Assembly also urged the government to keep pressing the issue at the UN, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and other international forums, and to keep advocating for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
