Shireen Mazari presents potential strategic conflict resolution model for Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: Federal Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen M Mazari has stated that Pakistan needs to aggressively put forward concrete proposals for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute on the basis of the UN resolutions.

Speaking at a seminar on Youm-e-Tasees Day of Azad Kashmir held at the Republic University College in Islamabad on Wednesday, Dr Mazari laid out a set of concrete and comprehensive proposals aimed at taking the Kashmir case to the world on the basis of specific and implementable steps.

In her groundbreaking speech, Dr. Mazari presented a potential strategic conflict resolution model for Kashmir, first of its nature to address the long awaited Kashmir conflict premised on principle of self determination and plebiscite, comprising the details of intermediary steps.

Dr Mazari suggested that Pakistan should propose a solution of the Kashmir problem resembling the Irish Peace Accord. She made it clear that she was not referring to any specific clauses of the said accord but the broad concept on the basis of which the accord was signed and implemented.

She also referred to the East Timor independence based on the concept of self determination and said Pakistan should press the Kashmir case on these lines. She also said Pakistan should ask the United Nations to document all the Kashmiris in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) and also of the Kashmiri Diaspora across the world who qualified to vote in the referendum based on the UN resolutions whenever it took place adding that such documentation needed to be done.

The minister said the citizens of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) were already documented because they were participating in regular elections.

She condemned the worst human rights violations and brutal repression of innocent Kashmiris by India in Indian Occupied Kashmir. She added that the time has come and we have to move beyond clichés and mere declaratory statements of support for Kashmiris, struggling for their right to self-determination and take concrete steps that put India on the defensive. Such specific and well-argued steps would compel India to explain its refusals thereby exposing the weakness in its position on Kashmir and reaffirming the right of self determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

The seminar was also addressed by Defence analyst Lt Gen (retd) Amjad Shoaib and senior journalists Dr Moeed Pirzada and Fahd Husain.