Peace and stability depend on Kashmir solution: seminar

Staff Report

LAHORE: Peace and stability in South Asia is only possible if the Kashmir dispute is solved according to the will of Kashmiris, otherwise it will generate new freedom movements in Kashmir, said speakers at a seminar.

The seminar, titled ‘Solution of Kashmir dispute with regard to the stability of South Asia’, was organised by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) at a local hotel. The seminar also paid also paid tribute to Syed Saeed Shah Nazki, former Kashmir Muhaz-a-Azadi president, on his fourth death anniversary.

Adressing the seminar, Asma Jahangir, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan chairperson, said that the Kashmir dispute was a very sensitive issue and President Gen Pervez Musharraf has adopted a “hard and fast pace” to resolve it, which was disturbing to the dialogue process. She said that it was difficult to see a solution of this long-lasting conflict because it was clear from the way in which the issue had been taken up by India and Pakistan that is was the result of external pressure. Jahangir said that a permanent solution of the Kashmir issue was possible if all stakeholders, particularly the Kashmiris, were involved in the process.

She said that during the Hurriat Conference leaders’ recent visit, she met with JKLF chief Yasseen Malik in Islamabad and discussed possible solutions of the Kashmir issue. She said that the settlement of the Kashmir issue was not only in the interest of the Kashmiris, who had been fighting for their right of self-determination since 1947, but also in the interest of over one billion people living in Pakistan and India. Jahangir said that the Kashmir conflict had been used as an excuse by the Pakistani military regimes to over overthrow democratic governments. There was no doubt that human rights were violated in Azad, but “it was very difficult to highlight them,” she said.

Justice (r) Sharif Hussain Bukhari, Kashmir Action Committee chairman, said that a Kashmir solution and permanent peace in South Asia depended upon the Indian leadership. He said that if Indian leaders were ready to resolve the issue, Western pressure would not be needed.

Faisal Nazki, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Punjab president, said that Kashmiris would not accept division or the Line of Control as a permanent border. “An independent state for Kashmiris is the only solution to this issue,” he said.

Shazia Ahmad, Asr resource centre representative, said that the Indian armed forces had humiliated the Kashmiri women during the last twenty years of the freedom struggle. Seesal Chaudhry, an educationist, Arif Kamal Butt, Kashmir Muhaz-e-Azadi president, and Rehana Kanwal Butt, Dukhtran-a-Kashmir chairperson, also addressed the seminar and paid tribute to Saeed Shah Nazki.

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