Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday offered his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi “to sit down and talk”, seeking peaceful resolution of all issues, including the Kashmir dispute.
In his maiden address to the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, Shehbaz highlighted the impact of climate change resulting in the devastating rain-induced floods in Pakistan and urged global leaders to come together and “act now” before it’s too late.
“For 40 days and 40 nights, biblical flood poured on us. Even today, huge swathes of the
country are still under water. Thirty-three million people, including women and children, are at high risk of health hazards. More than 1,500 of my people have gone from the world, including 400 children. Far more are in peril,” he said.
The premier said people in the country were asking for reasons for the destruction caused. “The undeniable truth is that the calamity has not been triggered by anything we have done,” he said. He said the impact on the health and wealth of Pakistan was beyond calculation at this point. “So my real worry is about the next stage of this challenge. When the cameras leave, and the story just shifts away to conflicts like the Ukraine, my question is, will we be left alone, to cope with a crisis we did not create?” he asked.
“I will be most forthcoming to sit down and talk to our Indian counterpart to pave the way
forward for future so that our generations do not suffer… so that we spend our resources in
mitigating miseries, on building structures to face these floods and outbursts of clouds,” he
said.
“We want to have peace with India but long-lasting and enduring peace can only be guaranteed through a just and fair solution of Kashmir… [by] providing the rights to the people of Kashmir under UN Charter according to Security Council resolutions.”
He said that developing countries don’t have unlimited resources and the available resources should be spent on the well-being of the people.
Shehbaz said that Pakistan’s urgent priority right now was to ensure rapid economic growth
and lift millions out of destitution and hunger, and added that to enable any such policy
momentum, Pakistan needed a stable external environment.
“We look for peace with all our neighbours, including India. Sustainable peace and stability in South Asia, however, remain contingent upon a just and lasting solution to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. At the heart of this longstanding dispute lies the denial of the inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination,” he added.
The premier said that India’s illegal and unilateral actions on August 5, 2019, to change the
internationally recognised “disputed” status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and altering the demographic structure of the occupied territory further undermined the prospects of peace and inflamed regional tensions.
“India’s relentless campaign of repression against Kashmiris has continued to grow in scale and intensity. In pursuit of this heinous goal … New Delhi has ramped up its military deployments in occupied Jammu and Kashmir to 900,000 troops, thus making it the most militarized zone in the world,” he added.
The prime minister said that the serial brutalisation of Kashmiris takes many forms: extrajudicial killings, incarceration, custodial torture and death, indiscriminate use of force, deliberate targeting of Kashmiri youth with pellet guns, and collective punishments imposed on entire communities.
“In a classic settler-colonial project, India is seeking to turn the Muslim-majority
Jammu and Kashmir into a Hindu-majority territory, through illegal demographic changes,” he added.
