The Diplomatic Insight organised a seminar on Wednesday titled, ‘Nagorno-Karabakh and Kashmir: Two Nations Same Pain’ at the National Library of Pakistan.
The seminar was organised to draw the global community’s attention to the two long-standing and unresolved conflicts in the Caucuses and South Asia, namely, Nagorno-Karabakh and Kashmir.
While addressing the audience Azerbaijani Ambassador to Pakistan HE Dashgin Shikarov highlighted the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh. He said the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict on Nagorno-Karabakh had raged on for more than 20 years.
Historically, the region was part of different Azerbaijani states and was populated by Azerbaijanis.
He added that the unjust Armenian aggression in Nagorno-Karabakh was the most tragic event in Azerbaijan’s modern history. He said further that Pakistan has taken a principal stand on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and did not build encourage relations with Armenia due to its occupation of Azerbaijani lands.
He paid tribute to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee for adopting a resolution on 1 February, 2012 which condemned the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and the genocide committed by Armenian armed forces in Khojali. The resolution also called upon the international community to urge Armenia to implement the UN Security Council’s decisions.
The Diplomatic Insight Chief Editor Asif Noor highlighted the magazine’s objectives of ‘Peace Through Informed Dialogue’. He said the publication aimed to connect a widely diverse, multicultural community to inspire action, provide publicity, media coverage and thereby creating general awareness about international and domestic issues.
He stated that the seminar was the first in a series of seminars that
magazine intends to organise in the coming year.
National Defence University Department of International Relations Chairman, Col Muhammad Khan highlighted the Kashmir issue and its historical and human rights perspective.
He said the Indian forces have committed the worst human rights violations and that the international community needed to take notice of these and to stop these war crimes.
Quaid-I-Azam University (QAU) Department of History Chairperson, Prof Dr Razia Sultana, said the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict had deep historical roots that needed to be understood in order to get a clear picture of the present day conflict.
She stated that Armenia, like India, has remained a principle aggressor and that history reflected the fact clearly.
QAU School of Politics and International Relations Director Prof Dr Lubna Abid Ali said there were similarities between these two disputes of the Muslim world. She added that the international community and the UN mandated organisations had exerted half-hearted efforts to resolve both the issues.
She stated that Kashmir had become a nuclear flash point between India and Pakistan whereas the Nagorno-Karabakh possed a large threat to the regional security of the Caucasus and the Middle East.
National Library of Pakistan Director General Ch Nazir expressed his gratitude to the guests and the audience. Dashgin Shikarov inaugurated the ‘Heydar Aliyev Corner’ at the National Library and launched a book titled, ‘Azerbaijan-Pakistan Relations: Challenges and Opportunities’ which was published by The Diplomatic Insight.
