ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday urged India to hold dialogue with it on the Kashmir issue to speed up the process of normalization of bilateral relations.
Winding up a two-hour debate on an adjournment motion in the national assembly federal education minister Fakhar Imam said that Pakistan could not remain indifferent to the events in the valley.
Fakhar Imam said India should withdraw its security forces from the valley and also withdraw the disturbed areas act and the armed forces special act in the state.
“The Kashmir problem cannot be solved until and unless the promised plebiscite is held to permit Kashmiri people to determine their own fate” as per the United Nations resolutions he said.
India has made it clear that Kashmiri is an integral part of the country and any territorial dispute with Pakistan has to be bilaterally resolved under the 1972 Shimla agreement.
The Pakistan minister said the relations with India could not be normalized without the resolution of the Kashmir issue.
He said during the recently concluded foreign secretary’s talks in New Delhi the Pakistan delegation had discussed the issue with their Indian counterparts.
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed adviser to the prime minister on information said the state-owned Pakistani electronic media would continue to extend full support to secessionists in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said “it is only obligatory on our part to support those (separatists) on moral grounds and at all levels possible.”
Earlier moving the adjournment motion Liaqat Baloch of the ruling Islamic Jahmoori Ittehad (IJI) urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to undertake visits to Muslim countries to muster support for the Kashmir issue.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 19, 1991
