OIC member: countries urged to help resolve Kashmir, Palestine issues

Islamabad/Muzaffarabad:President Azad Kashmir Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry has said that the OIC and member countries of the forum should join forces and play their much needed role to help resolve the longstanding Kashmir and Palestine issues.

He expressed these views in a detailed meeting with the OIC delegation that met him under the leadership of Ambassador Yousef Mohammad S. Aldobeay, Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and OIC's Special Envoy for Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking on the occasion, the President, while referring to India's relentless repression of political and human rights in Kashmir, stressed the need for intensifying efforts to resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute peacefully in accordance with the UNSC resolutions.

He said that there was a dire need that the Muslim countries should use their diplomatic, economic and political clout to stop the bloodbath of the Kashmiri and Palestinian people who have suffered more than 70 years under brutal foreign occupation. Barrister Chaudhry commended the OIC's steadfast support to Kashmiris' just cause stating that the Muslim body has always supported Kashmiris' struggle for right to self-determination. Terming India and Israel as two sides of the same coin, he said, the fascist regimes have been engaged in systematic genocide of Palestinian and Kashmiri people. Kashmir, he said, has been turned into an open air prison where people have been deprived of all the basic rights and essential freedoms. India's imperialistic presence and massive militarisation in the occupied Kashmir, is the biggest threat to the region's peace and stability. India's unilateral decision to abrogate Article 370, he said, was a flagrant violation of UNSC resolutions and other international human rights treaties."