Unilateral withdrawal from stance on Kashmir to be detrimental; says AJK President Masood Khan
Pakistan has conveyed to India that Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz will be attending the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in Amritsar scheduled for December 3 and 4
Days ahead of the Heart of Asia conference scheduled to be held in Amritsar, India, next week, President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Masood Khan has urged the Pakistani government and Kashmiri people “not to unilaterally budge” from their principled stance on Kashmir which could prove to be a “detrimental and premature move”.
Pakistan has conveyed to India that Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz will be attending the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in Amritsar scheduled for December 3 and 4. India, on the other hand, has remained non-committal about holding talks with Sartaj Aziz at the HoA moot. The conference will be addressed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, besides participation of over 40 countries.
“Unilateral departure from our principled stance on Kashmir would be premature and detrimental to the cause of Kashmir. Engagement and reciprocity should be genuine exercises. Next time we talk to India over Kashmir, we must demand comprehensive dialogue on all aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute,” said President Masood Khan in an exclusive interview with DNA ahead of the Heart of Asia dialogue. Khan himself is a veteran diplomat with the unique experience of serving in India, China and the UN.
“And it should be a stand-alone dialogue. At the same time, we should not reduce our efforts in the multilateral domain which includes the United Nations and powerful capitals. The outreach started recently with India must be continued however.”
He also said India is responsible for the repression and escalation of violence in the Occupied Kashmir and across the working boundary and the Line of Control (LoC). So India alone can defuse the humanitarian crisis as hundreds of innocent Kashmiris have been killed, thousands of young and old, women and children have been injured, blinded and maimed. Out of those injured, per the latest data, 17,000 Kashmiris have been critically injured. So India has to stop killing Kashmiris.
This needs to be pointed out that there is a humanitarian crisis but there is no humanitarian relief and the international community has not stepped forward to establish a humanitarian corridor.
Masood Khan says if India wants genuine improvement, they must stop this bloodletting, evacuate some of their troops out of Kashmir because these troops have unleashed a reign of terror there.
Responding to Indian spin about the indigenous nature of the Kashmiri movement, the president said Kashmiris are not terrorists and their movement is peaceful and these young men, mostly teenagers or even children, who are waging a freedom struggle against Indian occupant forces, protest peacefully. The worst thing is that they pick up stones when forces thrash them or open fire at them. They are up against the well equipped soldiers who are firing at them by guns or palette guns. So stones are a defensive weapon. So since India is responsible for this crisis, it needs to take credible steps to mitigate the sufferings of the Kashmiri people.
“I fear that if India doesn’t move swiftly from its pursuit of mass blinding and mass killings in Occupied Kashmir, the Kashmiris would never forgive the occupation forces and therefore those peaceful demonstrators are on the verge of taking up arms, although they are unarmed right now. They don’t have any weapons and Indian armed forces are heavily equipped, supported by the police and other paramilitary forces”.
He said Hurriyat leaders even refused to meet Indian delegations and said that since India doesn’t recognise Kashmir as a disputed territory, it would be useless to talk to them
Asked if taking up arms by Kashmiri youth would help India up the ante that Kashmiris were terrorists, Masood Khan said that Indians had been trying to label freedom loving Kashmiris since 1947-48 when the Indian troops in a massacre had killed 2,50,000 Kashmiri Muslims in Jammu.
“And this killing has been continuing ever since. But despite all this brute force, India can’t kill the entire Kashmiri population. They also can’t smother their voices too as Kashmiris are calling for freedom and realisation of their right of self determination. This voice can’t be suppressed. India has tried for last seven decades to do that but it has not succeeded,” he said.
Khan believes there have been several waves of suppression in the Indian Occupied Kashmir and they have used three or four ways to integrate Indian Occupied Kashmir into Indian union.
“The Indian regime has used coercion, brutalities, economic inducements and recruited locals through launching pro-India parties like National Conference and the PDP which don’t have public following in Kashmir. The fourth method they used was to tarnish the image of Kashmiris branding them as terrorists.”
He says the Indians also tarnished the image of Pakistan, blaming it for state sponsored terrorism for backing Kashmiris.
“The matter of the fact is that the Kashmiris are no terrorists. There is no al Qaeda, no Jaish-e-Mohammad, no Lashkare Tayyaba out there in Kashmir. Let me add there is no ISIS either in Kashmir, there is no violent extremism too. Kashmiris are very peaceful people and everywhere they go in the world they have contributed a lot in the development of that specific country”.
Talking about Kashmiri Diaspora, Masood Khan said whether Kashmiris were in the UK or US, they have always played a key role in peace and development of their host countries.
“The unarmed teenagers, fearing their lives, have fled their homes and taken refuges in the orchards or forests. So India which is not a rational power being an occupant force in Kashmir, is radicaling the furious youth. The oppressive tactics are aimed at breaking the will of the Kashmiri people but they would not be able to do so”.
However, Masood Khan admitted that despite having much political and economic influence, Kashmiri people’s efforts to raise their issue were not organised and there was a dire need to channelise these efforts.
“These scattered efforts need to be synergised and channelised more. In my meetings, I have urged influential Kashmiri expatriates to get organised and give leadership to the voice for the Kashmir cause. They are an asset for Pakistan and Kashmir and they need to play their key role in their parliaments,” he maintained.
About the role being played by Hurriyat leadership, Masood Khan paid tribute to the Hurriyat leadership for holding their ground and maintaining unity among their ranks despite Indian efforts launched to divide them during the recent protests.
He said Hurriyat leaders even refused to meet Indian delegations and said that since India doesn’t recognise Kashmir as a disputed territory, it would be useless to talk to them.
“While Hurriyat leadership is passing on the freedom struggle to the younger generations, Indians are targeting civilians across the LoC to shift world attention away from Occupied Kashmir”.
Masood Khan also refused to advise the Hurriyat leadership on their way forward, saying he had only to pay tribute, praise and salute to the Kashmiri leadership who had stood united, held their ground and refused to budge even an inch from their stated principled stance on Kashmir freedom.