Imran urges UN, world community to play role for resolving Kashmir issue

PM Imran ruled out possibility of any talks with India until curfew if lifted from Occupied Kashmir.

NEW YORK (Dunya News) – Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday urged United Nations and the world community to act now and play their role for resolving the Kashmir issue, Dunya News reported.

Highlighting the deteriorating situation in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) during a press conference along with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Pakistan s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Maleeha Lodhi in New York, PM Imran urged the world as well as the United Nations to intervene and help address the issue by saying, “Now it is the time for the UN and the world to act.”

He said he was in New York to highlight what was going on in the IOJ&K and the potential it had for the two nuclear armed countries coming face to face. The blockade of eight million people in the IOJ&K by 900,000 Indian troops, he said, was unprecedented and inhuman.

PM Imran brushed aside the possibility of any talks between Pakistan and India unless and until it decides to lift curfew from the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. “Unless and until they lift curfew, there is no chance of talking with India”, Imran Khan said.

To a question about the possibility of his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of ongoing 74th United Nations General Assembly session, he said before August 5, Pakistan tried everything and he himself spoke to Prime Minister Modi but sadly there was no positive response from the other side.

But after August 5, there was no point in talking with India, he added.

The prime minister described the August 5 unilateral and illegal Indian action – which eliminated the special status of an internationally accepted disputed territory by revoking Article 370 of their constitution – and the continued oppression as “just a beginning”, saying the situation would worsen.

Imran Khan said he feared change of demography by India in the occupied piece of land [IOJ&K] and also feared massacre of Kashmiris by 900,000 Indian troops after lifting of curfew.

Expressing his disappointment over the international community’s attitude, the prime minister said the United Nations Security Council resolutions, which promised the resolution of dispute through a plebiscite for the Kashmiris to exercise their right of self-determination, had been pending for the last 70 years.

“I am a bit disappointed by international community,” he said and questioned what would be the reaction of world if eight million Europeans, Jews or even eight Americans were put under siege.

He highlighted the deteriorating situation in the IOJ&K and urged the world as well as the United Nations to intervene and help address the issue by saying, “Now it is the time for the UN and the world to act.”

The prime minister thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey for raising the issue of Kashmir during his speech at the UN General Assembly. He said the Turkish president would be visiting Pakistan next month.