Foreign Desk Report
NEW YORK, Jul 18 (APP): The universal values of freedom and peace are under assault in Indian occupied Kashmir, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed Khan has said, and he called for ending New Delhi’s “egregious human rights violations” in the disputed region.
“India has occupied the region and brutally oppressed its people since 1947,” he said in an opinion piece published in Newsweek, a leading American weekly magazine, pointing out that random and senseless killing remains a fact of life in Kashmir. “The international community, particularly the United States, cannot let India get away with its brutal oppression of the Kashmiri people under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic,” the Pakistani envoy wrote.
Last year, he said, the spirits of millions of Kashmiri people were lifted when President Donald Trump offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute, when he met Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington. “The president recognized that peace in South Asia would remain elusive until Kashmiris are able to choose their own destiny,” he said, adding, “This would not be possible without U.S. leadership.” But, Ambassador Khan said that in August 2019, India unilaterally annexed Jammu and Kashmir, making a mockery of international law and the reams of UN resolutions that recognize Kashmir as an international dispute, violating bilateral agreements, as well as its own commitments to the Kashmiri people.
