Any change in J&K status to face strong opposition,Pakistan warns India

Islamabad: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Wednesday cautioned India that Pakistan would strongly resist any move to revoke the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir.Addressing a press conference along with Chairman Kashmir Committee Syed Fakhar Imam following the special meeting of parliamentary committee on Kashmir held at Foreign Office, Qureshi said the parliament of Pakistan was unanimous on the stance that there could be no change of status of Jammu and Kashmir.The Article 370 of the Indian constitution gives special status to occupied Kashmir and the Bharatia Janta Party had pledged to revoke it after securing the second consecutive term in government.Foreign Minister Qureshi said Pakistan would oppose any attempt that violated the resolutions of United Nations Security Council on Kashmir.He said there had been opposition on the issue in India and an All Parties Conference minus BJP had been demanded by several politicians to settle the issue.Qureshi said Pakistan had a state policy on Kashmir, which was not affected with the change of governments.He said Prime Minister Imran Khan during his visit to the upcoming session of UN General Assembly at New York in September would interact with world leaders and highlight the issue of Kashmir.He said India in 1948 had approached the UNSC and had agreed to hold plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, however later turned the valley into the ''most militarized zone of the world''.He expressed serious concern over reports that India had deployed another 10,000 troops in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.Qureshi said Kashmir dispute was the major impediment in attaining peace in South Asia and mentioned that India was persistently avoiding dialogue with Pakistan to resolve all the outstanding issues.He recalled that BJP during the recently held general elections used the ''Pakistan card'' and the incident of Pulwama incident to play with political sentiments of masses.The foreign minister expressed satisfaction that international community had started realizing the gravity of human rights violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir and endorsed Pakistan''s stance of holding an inquiry.He urged the human rights organizations of Pakistan to also come forward and highlight the blatant atrocities in IoK at their platforms.He said India did not seem to let the leadership of All Parties Hurriyat Conference to engage in the process of finding solution to Kashmir dispute.On Afghanistan, he said Pakistan was committed to peace in the conflict-hit country and was ready to facilitate the process aimed at bringing stability in the region.He said Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad would soon visit Pakistan to discuss with the stakeholders the peace process.Chairman Kashmir Committee Syed Fakhar Imam said the offer of the U.S president Donald Trump to mediate on Kashmir issue was a ''silver lining''.He said Pakistan needed to approach the Permanent Five countries and convince their leadership on the significance of resolving the Kashmir issue for attaining sustainable peace in South Asia.He said India had been insisting to resolve all matters with Pakistan on bilateral basis, however it avoided any such effort by Pakistan.On delimitation of 88 seats of the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly, Fakhar Imam said any such attempt by India to change Kashmir''s constitutional status would not be acceptable.He mentioned that the international community should take notice of the tyranny of Indian security forces in IoK where over 0.1 million had been martyred including women and children.

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