ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday invited the opposition for talks to hammer out a comprehensive action plan aimed at resolution of the lingering Jammu and Kashmir dispute after the Senate saw the two sides engaging in a blame game over the issue.

“Let us join hands on this issue. This is a continuous battle and we will have to fight it collectively,” he said after shaming the lawmakers from three mainstream opposition parties — the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) — with a forceful retort to their remarks and accusations over the government’s handling of the Kashmir issue.

The foreign minister was winding up a discussion on Kashmir in the house to mark the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination day.

On Jan 5, 1949, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had passed a resolution supporting the Kashmiris’ right to decide their future by themselves through a UN-sponsored plebiscite.

Two sides engaged in blame game over the issue in Senate

PPP parliamentary leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman, while initiating the debate, noted that the Kashmir issue would have been in a different global dimension had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto been alive. Rana Maqbool of the PML-N accused the PTI-led government of putting the Kashmir issue on the back burner. Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri of the JUI-F alleged that Narendra Modi and Imran Khan had been brought into power under a plan for held Kashmir’s complete occupation by New Delhi.

In his speech, Foreign Minister Qureshi criticised the opposition for using the Kashmir issue for political point-scoring and having the cheek to ask what the present government had done on the dispute. He said working for the Kashmir cause was an obligation of the government and it would do its best with honesty and sincerity.

He agreed with Ms Rehman’s statement about Z.A. Bhutto, but regretted that his successors in the PPP turned their eyes away from Kashmir. The remarks prompted Sherry Rehman to stage a walkout from the house.

“Sorry to see the govt playing politics even on Kashmir in Senate. This is the first time any sitting Govt has stirred poison into what we see as a non-divisive non-partisan issue,” she tweeted shortly after the walkout.

In her absence, the foreign minister continued firing salvos, saying he had invited Sherry Rehman, Naveed Qamar and Mushahid Hussain Sayed for a briefing on Kashmir. “I wish they had shown greatness, rising above political expediencies,” he added.

The minister’s claim was also questioned by Ms Rehman in another tweet. “Shocked to hear FM saying that he invited myself, Naveed Qamar and Mushahid Hussain to his Kashmir briefings and that we did not go, because each time all 3 of us went. Only once I was in Karachi at short notice and I personally regretted but my colleagues went! We’ve never done such politics,” she tweeted.

Mr Qureshi also reminded Ghafoor Haidri that his party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman had a chance to plead the case as chairman of the Kashmir Committee for a long time, but he could not pay attention to the matter.

In response to the PML-N allegation of putting the Kashmir issue on the back burner, the minister said: “I am aware of your political compulsions, but it is known to all who did it.”

He referred to the claim by former Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam that ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif had asked the diplomats not to speak against India and on the subject of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav during the PML-N tenure.

About the change of occupied Kashmir’s status, he said it was part of the BJP’s manifesto even when Indian Prime Minister Modi was a guest of then premier Sharif at Jati Umra. He regretted that he had written letters to Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, inviting them for a briefing on Kashmir, but they had not responded to his letters.

Earlier, opening the debate on Kashmir in the house, Sherry Rehman said the right to self-determination was one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by the UN and all international charters. “What the Modi regime has done is actually unconscionable and unprecedented in the history of any nation. He has brought his violent, colonising rule to an entire valley of people. From the use of pellet guns to blinding and completely crippling young people who come out on the streets to ask for their rights. Can the international community not see this?” she asked.

“We have had important reports from the UN, EU (European Union) and human rights organisations from all over the world, including India, reporting on the level of impunity given freely to Indian occupation forces numbering 800,000 to 900,000. They have made this beautiful valley into a valley of blood and tears. A valley of mass graves and illegal detentions, where you have people disappearing overnight, throttled by the guns and torture of the Indian military and security forces, who are protected by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978. Had this been anywhere else, the whole world would have objected,” she added.

“Modi sarkar tried to take over the Kashmiris’ right to domicile, and not just to self-determination but also to live and breathe freely… The women are raped, their children are under detention… There have been hundreds and thousands of people who have disappeared and the brave Kashmiri people have constantly resisted the guns, tanks and the constant state of being jailed and living in an open jail. While the international community has turned away from it,” Ms Rehman regretted.

“As today is Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s birth anniversary, I wonder how he would have fought the case of Kashmir both at the UN with the international community and at the OIC. With all global leaders, SZAB would have made his voice heard and would have made Pakistan proud. He would have seen to it that the Kashmiris’ voice is heard,” she added.

Crackdown on opposition Taking part in a debate on ‘unprecedented crackdown’ on opposition workers, Sherry Rehman said no democratic government in the country’s history had ever victimised the political opponents the way the PTI government was doing.

She said the National Accountability Bureau had conducted inquiries against 18 PTI ministers [for their alleged involvement in corruption], but none of them was ever remanded in NAB custody for 90 days or handcuffed like the opposition leaders facing maltreatment.

The PPP senator said main opposition leaders were in jail, including Syed Khursheed Shah, Shehbaz Sharif, Hamza Shehbaz and Khawaja Asif. “The accountability is only for the opposition,” she said, warning the PTI government that it could face the same situation in future.

She said the foreign minister in his policy statement in the house also tried to make the Kashmir issue controversial.

Ms Rehman pointed out that all right-wing governments of the world were busy in providing relief to the masses in this time of pandemic, but the PTI government was least bothered about skyrocketing prices of commodities. As many 60 per cent of the people of Pakistan had become food insecure, but the government was busy only in making arrests, she added.

She said the government would fail in its design to reverse the 18th Amendment and make changes in the NFC Award.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2021