New York: The Secretary General of World Kashmir Awareness Forum, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, has said that third party intervention and mediation is indispensable for settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai was speaking at a discussion in Brooklyn, New York, with the representatives of various political parties of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The discussion was organized by Sardar Sawar Khan, former Advisor to the AJK Prime Minister.
Dr Fai reiterated that Kashmir conflict is not a border quarrel between India and Pakistan, or a fight between Hindus and Muslims and neither a struggle between theocracy and secularism. “It is primarily about the 20 million Kashmiri people, their human rights and right to self-determination under international law and still binding United Nations Security Council resolutions,†he said.
Dr Fai maintained that third party intervention and mediation in Kashmir was indispensable as India and Pakistan had negotiated for more than half a century without results. “All the flowery declarations from Tashkent, Simla, Lahore and other scores of summits have proven sound and fury signifying nothing. To persist in the same course after 70 years of dismal failure conjures up many adjectives, but none are flattering to the cerebral faculty,†he said.
The best candidates, Dr Fai suggested for outside intervention and mediation seem the US or the UN, as in Northern Ireland, East Timor, the Middle East peace process, and Bosnia. The mediation can also be undertaken by a person of international stature, such as Kofi Annan, Bishop Desmond Tutu or President Mary Robinson, he added.
Sardar Sawar Khan said that the genuine representatives of the Kashmiri people must be senior partners in any negotiations over Kashmir’s political future. “No solution will endure which fails to command popular consent. Contrary to much of India’s myth making, the Kashmiri resistance is overwhelmingly indigenous,†he said.
Those who attended the meeting included Sardar Younis Khan, Ajmal Mohammad, Shakeel Mohammad, Ghulam Ghous Shafiq, Sardar Mustafa Khan, Sardar Sajid Swar Khan, Ramzan Khan, Zaheer Hanif, Khalid Hamid, Imran Mohammad, Ansar Mohammad, Kamran Mohammad, Azam Khan, Rashid Mohammad, Masood Mohammad, Sohail Ajmal, Mohsin Shafiq, Ahsan Shafiq, Hussnain Shakeel, Shayan Shakeel, Farid Mohammad, Zulfiqar Ali, Shahid Zulfiqar, Abdul Mateen, Raja Mukhtar Ahmed and Sardar Wajid Sawar. Haji Mohammad Shafiq concluded the meeting with special prayers.
Earlier, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai called on the world-renowned Kashmiri intellectual, Ambassador Yusuf Buch, at his residence in New York City. Ambassador Yusuf Buch on the occasion said, “What principles and instruments do Kashmiris invoke for the redress of the wrongs inflicted on them? Not any conceived and inspired solely by their religion. They call for adherence to principles which are recognized by the UN Charter as basis to a peaceful and stable world order. The documents the Kashmiris rely upon were not drawn in mosques. They were composed by western hands in the Security Council of the United Nations.â€
Ambassador Buch said, “The Kashmiri Americans should feel impelled to explore all humane and reasonable avenues to deliver the men, women and children of Kashmir from an acute and unbearable suffering. It is because of the manifest need to articulate the recognition that the situation in Kashmir is not frozen and, if at times it seems so, it will not stay frozen.â€