ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria has said that no improvement in relations with India is expected as long as it does not change its negative attitude and stop persecution of defenceless Kashmiri people.
In an exclusive interview with Radio Pakistan, he regretted that the Indian side had missed many opportunities for normalizing ties with Pakistan due to its negative attitude which it manifested by sabotaging the SAARC conference as well as the recently held BRICs and Heart of Asia moots.
The spokesperson said the ongoing movement in the Indian occupied Kashmir could not be linked with terrorism but it was the just struggle of local people for their right to self-determination.
No country gave weightage to the Indian stance of linking the movement with terrorism, he added.
Responding to a question, Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan was effectively highlighting the Kashmir dispute at international fora and would continue to do so. ‘We will continue to extend moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri brethren,” he added.
He said it was because of Pakistan’s forceful diplomacy that the United Nations, the OIC and several international human rights organizations had voiced concerns over the prevailing gross human rights violations in occupied Kashmir.
The Geneva based Human Rights Commission and the OIC had demanded an independent inquiry into the Indian atrocities, he added.
He was confident that in the coming days, India would be left with no option but to allow an inquiry into the occupied Kashmir’s situation.
Nafees Zakaria noted that Kashmir was an internationally recognized dispute and there were several UNSC resolutions which accepted the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people.
He said the resolution of the seven decades old dispute was imperative for peace and stability in the region.
Giving a complete background of the lingering dispute, the spokesperson said several important countries had offered mediation for its resolution, but the Indian side was sticking to its intransigence which would not augur well either for India nor for regional peace and stability.
The spokesperson said India was trying to cover up its persecution campaign in the occupied Kashmir by heating up the situation at the Line of Control.
