Speakers flay Pak, AJK role towards Kashmir cause

ISLAMABAD - Speakers at a seminar organised here on Friday categorically slammed the passive role played by the governments of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir towards Kashmir cause and urged both the regimes to duly listen to the voice of Kashmiris in the wake of unprecedented uprising in Indian Held Kashmir.
It was clearly reflected through the seminar titled “Kashmir issue and our responsibilities” that all the stakeholders comprising the leaderships of Indian Held Kashmir, AJK and Pakistan, were not on the same page and had some serious differences which they openly shared during the occasion.
However, President AJK Raja Zulqarnain believed in mutual cooperation for the resolution of Kashmir issue and urged all the political parties to join hands for Kashmir cause. He said that India wanted to exhaust the patience of Kashmiris by prolonging the issue through coercive tactics but it miserably failed. He criticised international community for having failed to play any vibrant role for the resolution of Kashmir issue. “International community has yet to play a worthy role, Kashmir is our cause and we have to solve it by mutual cooperation,” he said.
Chief Minister Gilgit-Baltistan Syed Mehdi Shah said that GB had made maximum sacrifices for Kashmir cause. “The people of GB made maximum sacrifices and suffered a lot due to Kashmir issue. The problem cannot be solved by seminars and debates, practical steps are needed,” he said regretting that Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir did not have proper representation from all stakeholders.
Chairman Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman deplored what he termed Pakistan’s submissive tilt towards United States and argued that Kashmir issue was not resolvable unless Pakistan changed its focus from US centred policy to Kashmir. He said that normalisation of relations with India was tantamount to resolution of Kashmir issue. Commenting on the visible differences between Kashmiri leaderships, Fazl said, “I urge our Kashmiri brothers who form political leaderships to be as united and focussed for Kashmir cause as they expect us to be.”