NEW YORK: Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan arrived in New York on Saturday to a warm airport welcome from a cross-section of Kashmiri people as well as Pakistanis.
Sardar Masood Khan served in New York as Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations until February 2015.
On his arrival, he said that Kashmir is the most pressing outstanding issue for the international community to resolve in South Asia. But, he said it is not just a regional issue, it has serious international dimensions because both Pakistan and India are nuclear powers.
The issue, Masood Khan said is not frozen in time, but very much alive, as hundred of Kashmiris are being killed, persecuted and hounded by the forces in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
“Kashmiris have said NO to Indian rule.
The Indian occupying forces are especially targeting the eyes of civilians and as a results hundreds have lost their eyesight.”
On the eve of his address to OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir, Masood Khan said that the greatest challenge for Kashmiris was to break through the thick wall of apathy and expediency of the international community.
The UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council must hear the voices of the oppressed people of Indian Occupied Kashmir.
“We are using the platform of the OIC to reach out to the world. We will persevere and we will succeed, though we know it is going to be a long haul,” he added.
“We are grateful to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who, in his address to the UN General Assembly, will draw the attention of the international community to atrocities being committed in Indian Occupied Kashmir and urge the UN to take credible steps to stop heinous killings in Kashmir and move the parties toward to the resolution of the dispute.”—APP
