ISLAMABAD, : Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that Saudi Arabia has always supported Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir from the platform of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Rejecting the impression of withdrawal of support by Saudi Arabia to Pakistan’s stance on the Kashmir issue, he said in the recent meeting of the OIC Foreign Ministers Council in Niamey, Niger, the kingdom had once again robustly explained its stand on the dispute and helped highlight it on the global level.
Sardar Masood, in separate interviews with the US-based Muslim Network TV and Saudi Arabia’s daily Arab News, said at the Niamey meeting, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan, in his address to the Niamey conference, stated in unequivocal terms that peace and security of South Asia was not possible without the settlement of the Kashmir conflict, according to a press release issued here on Tuesday.
The AJK president said the statement by Prince Faisal assumed more significance because Saudi Arabia was the current chair of the OIC. The people of Pakistan, and Jammu and Kashmir had expected that the brotherly country of Saudi Arabia would adopt a strong position on the situation of Kashmir, he said, but regretted that the United Arab Emirates had adopted silence on the Kashmir issue.
About the OIC’s concern over anti-Muslim hatred in different regions of the world, the AJK president said he had made it clear to the Muslim leaders during the meeting that the worst Islamophobia was taking place in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) where the Hindu fanatics were targeting the Muslims because of their religion, faith and values, and they wanted to eliminate the Muslims in not only India but also in the IIOJK.
To a question, Sardar Masood said the Indian Army had violated the ceasefire line and targeted the civilian population along the Line of Control (LoC) more than 2,700 times during the current year alone. As a consequence, dozens of people were martyred, scores were injured, and the people’s property damaged.
On the other hand, he maintained that the Pakistan Army in response to India’s aggression, targeted only Indian military positions while avoiding the Kashmiri brethren living on the other side of the LoC.
About the latest situation in IIOJK, the AJK president said India was using rape as an instrument of war against the Kashmiri women.
In violation of the United Nations resolutions, India was settling Indian Hindus in the internationally recognized disputed territory of Kashmir in order to turn the Muslim majority state into a Hindu majority region.
When asked to comment on the silence of the UN Human Rights Commission after issuing two reports on flagrant violation of Kashmiri people, he said the reports of United Nations Commission on Human Rights had significantly help highlighted the gross human rights violations in Kashmir.
He said after the UN Human Rights Commission reports of 2018 and 2019, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, European Parliament and the All-party Parliamentary Kashmir Group of the UK Parliament had also issued separate reports on human rights violations by the Indian troops in occupied Kashmir.
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