Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari addresses the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. Photo courtesy PPP Media Cell
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday slammed the international community for ignoring India’s rights abuses in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), stressing it is unwise to “sacrifice timeless principles for short-term interests.”
In an address to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly as part of three-day visit to the disputed region, he questioned the global community whether any country could “be allowed to renege on its solemn commitments to the United Nations, break its own promises and blatantly violate international law just because they want to.” Stressing that commitments under U.N. Security Council resolutions were sacrosanct, he said they could not be set aside on the “whims of a jingoistic political party, nor diluted by the passage of time.”
Referring to the G20 tourism working group meeting hosted by India in IIOJK, Bhutto-Zardari said Delhi was “misusing” its position as the G20 chair by hosting the event in a region internationally recognized as disputed. “This is yet another display of India’s arrogance on the world stage,” he said, emphasizing that IIOJK had become an open-air prison, with thousands of Kashmiri Muslims killed, disappeared or blinded while their lands were confiscated and properties bulldozed, and their culture disintegrated.
Lamenting that the rights abuses were facilitated by India’s laws, which granted its forces impunity for all crimes, he said this “barbarism” violated international law and made a mockery of the accepted norms of fundamental human rights. “One cannot wax lyrical about international law and the United Nations Security Council resolutions in Europe in the European context, and then turn a blind eye to the violation of the same international law in the Kashmiri context,” he maintained.
Stressing that resolving the Kashmir issue was a matter of duty, not choice for Pakistan, he said his visit to the region was testimony to Islamabad’s lasting commitment to the Kashmir cause. Referring to calls for peace with India, Bhutto-Zardari said Pakistan also desired this, but noted this could not be achieved so long as Delhi denied the dispute and urged the neighboring nation to take steps conducive to dialogue. “There is a clear distinction between terrorism and a people’s genuine quest for freedom. Terrorism cannot be and should not be used as an excuse to deny the Kashmiri people their fundamental rights and their fundamental freedoms,” he said, while urging the global community to urge India to reverse its abrogation of the special constitutional status of Kashmir; end attempts to change the region’s demographic composition; withdraw military deployments; and provide unhindered access to U.N., OIC and human rights organizations and international media to investigate the situation.
“I assure the Kashmiri people of Pakistan’s unstinted moral, diplomatic and political support. We have stood by them for decades, and I assure you that we will stand for as long as it takes our Kashmiri brethren to achieve their legitimate rights,” he added.
G20 summit
The G20 summit commenced in IIOJK on Monday, with China, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia boycotting as member states. Egypt and Indonesia also opted to skip the meeting, while several Western states sent their Delhi-based ambassadors rather than foreign ministers.
Ahead of the meeting, all political parties and freedom fighter groups in the disputed territory said they would observe a complete strike in IIOJK to register their protest. In a joint press release, they said that Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control would observe a shutdown on May 22 and organize protests and rallies in all major capitals of the world to make it clear that they did not support the G20 meeting occurring in a disputed region.
Last week, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Fernand de Varennes slammed the summit, saying it sought to “portray an international seal of approval” for a situation that should be “condemned.” India rejected the comments, even as Pakistan reiterated calls for the global community to pressure Delhi into adhering to U.N. resolutions requiring a plebiscite in the region to give Kashmiri people the right to self-determination.