Shireen Mazari criticises Foreign Office on Kashmir strategy

Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari on Saturday criticised the Foreign Office in failing to carry forward Prime Minister Imran Khan’s narrative on Kashmir.

In an astonishing rebuke of the FO, she said that it had "let Kashmiris and Prime Minister Imran Khan down" in their struggle for the Kashmir cause.

Addressing a function in Islamabad, Mazari said that it was through the prime minister's "single-handed efforts" that the narrative surrounding Kashmir changed in the global arena.

"If the Foreign Office had carried forward the prime minister's narrative, the situation would have been vastly different today," said the minister.

Mazari said that no matter the world's politics, had the Foreign Office taken action, the world would certainly have listened to Pakistan on the issue.

"But our diplomats chose leisurely hotel stays, dressing in three-piece suits and heavily starched clothes and speaking over the telephone," she added.

The human rights minister questioned how a country like Burkina Faso "has more diplomatic clout" than Pakistan, as it managed to get a resolution passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council against police brutality in the United States in the wake of protests against George Flyod's murder.

Mazari said we have to move away from traditional diplomacy and for that we need to adopt modern methods.

"The Kashmiri struggle is a just struggle. Indian occupation forces are using the debasement of women as a political tool," said the minister.

She said our response in the matter needs a major revamp if our voice against such atrocities is to go to the far reaches of the world.