Pakistan justifiably called off the 61st Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) scheduled to be held in Islamabad from September 30 to October 8 this year following uncalled for concern expressed by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Secretariat over decision of Pakistan not to invite Speaker of the Assembly of Occupied Kashmir to the moot. The Conference will now be held in New York. The stand adopted by the Parliament of Pakistan and the decision to scrap the moot is in furtherance of the principled stand taken by the country on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and is in line with the aspirations of the people of Pakistan. “The Commonwealth knows that Kashmir is a disputed territory and now it is impossible for the Commonwealth Conference to be held in Pakistan. IHK has not been decided by a plebiscite as per United Nations Security Council Resolution 47, the region is not officially a part of India and therefore the Assembly and government there are not legitimate. Although this resolution was adopted in 1948, less than a year after the partition of the Indian subcontinent, it has still not been successfully implemented due to various objections that the countries have had with each other’s policies for the plebiscite. The veracity of any plebiscite would also be questioned because elections in IHK are notorious for being held under the shadow of the gun. Sadiq added that Pakistan would raise the issue of Kashmir at every “forum of the Commonwealth”. However, the international community has grown wary of the manner in which India and Pakistan approach their conflicts and it is unlikely that we will receive any external mediation to resolve the Kashmir dispute. In November 2010, the UN removed IHK from its list of disputed territories, which makes it even more unlikely that any foreign body will intervene, as Pakistan hopes, to help the two neighbours resolve their differences. No doubt, Pakistan has been deprived of the opportunity to host a prestigious event mainly because of Indian lobbying and propaganda but it is satisfying that the controversy so generated has highlighted the issue of Jammu and Kashmir throughout the world. By firmly sticking to its principled position, Pakistan has conveyed an unambiguous message to the world community that Kashmir is unfinished agenda of partition and India will have to vacate its aggression. We hope that as emphatically stated by the Speaker, Pakistan would continue to speak for Kashmiris at all available regional and international forums. We would also suggest that the Parliament should consider the possibility of boycotting New York Conference and if, for some reasons it was decided to attend it, then the Kashmir issue should be on top of the points to be highlighted by Pakistan on the occasion.
pk.shafaqna.com
