The newly elected president of Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi has expressed his country’s earnest desire to have peaceful relations with all its neighbours particularly with its immediate neighbour India on the basis of mutual co-existence. While addressing the joint sitting of Parliament to mark the beginning of the new parliamentary year Dr. Alvi stated that the resolution of Kashmir dispute was imperative to have an enduring relationship between the two countries. Reaffirming Pakistan’s moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people he said that Kashmiris have a right to “self-determination”. He said that Pakistan will make efforts at every level to resolve the issue according to the UN resolutions. About the prevailing acrimonious atmosphere between the two states the president said, “Blame game brings no solution to any dispute”.
Denying Kashmiris the right of self-determination he said is condemnable and urged the international community to play its role. He also said it was important to resolve and improve ties between India and Pakistan, and emphasized that Pakistan desired peaceful and good neighborly relations with India on the basis of mutual co-existence. Fostering better relations with neighbours has always been Pakistan’s top most priority, however, the relationship between India and Pakistan have remained less than normal due to the festering Kashmir dispute that as a matter of the fact has been bedeviling relations between the two countries since the partition of India and creation of Pakistan. Had this issue (Kashmir) been resolved in accordance with the road-map proposed by the United Nations this residual acrimony and mistrust, which has now become a hallmark of Indo-Pak relationship, would have faded away, probably there would have been no wars either and at least Kashmiris who have always been on the receiving end might not have gone through the terrible situation they are trapped in for last several years.
It is worth to mention here that the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) resolution adopted on 13 August 1948 stated that the future status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people and to that end, upon acceptance of the truce agreement, both governments agree to enter into consultations with the Commission (UNCIP) to determine the fair and equitable conditions whereby such free expression will be assured.
The second UNCIP resolution, adopted on 5 January, 1949, reiterated that the question of the accession of the state of J&K to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite. Both India and Pakistan accepted the UNSC resolutions and the UNCIP proposals regarding a ceasefire, troop withdrawal and a plebiscite. But 70 years down the line many things have changed but the fate/future of Kashmiri nation, since then, hangs in balance because of the Indian government’s perpetual denial to implement these resolutions calling for a referendum in the region. The respective rulers of Pakistan have time and again expressed their desire to resolve this long pending dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions but the fact is that it is the Indian policy of deceit and deception that Kashmir issue hangs on for past several decades. The president of Pakistan has rightly said that the resolution of K-dispute is must for an enduring Indo-Pak relationship. It is high time that New Delhi should accept this ground reality, shun the policy of delay and obduracy on Kashmir and take necessary steps to resolve this unresolved dispute that happens to be the bone of contention between the two states.
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