NEW YORK: Highlighting the similarities of the situations in Indian-occupied Kashmir, and occupied Palestine, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram told a Kashmir solidarity meeting on Monday that both violate two basic global law principles — the right of self-determination and non-acquisition of territory by force.
Speaking on the occasion, Ambassador Akram said that the main conclusions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Palestine apply not only to the Israeli-occupied Occupied Palestinian Territory but have become part of global law and apply to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir
“The UN has an obligation ‘not to recognize’ the illegal situation and to ‘consider further action’ to put an end to the illegal presence of the occupying force,” Ambassador Akram told the meeting, which marked the 5th anniversary of India’s annexation of Jammu and Kashmir.
He said that Pakistan would seek the application of these conclusions of the ICJ in the case of Palestine and in the case of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. A large number of people including Permanent Representative of Turkiye, Ambassador Ahmet Yildiz, diplomats belonging to the OIC Contact Group on Kashmir, members of Kashmiri diaspora community, and students and youth attended the event.
Apart from Ambassador Akram, among those who addressed the event were Abdelhamid Siyam, senior Palestinian journalist and professor, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General of World Kashmir Awareness Forum, Ambassador Hameed Ajibaiye Opeloyeru, Permanent Observer of the OIC Mission to the UN, Senator Lt. General (retd) Abdul Qayyum, former chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Defence Production.
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At the outset, Consul General Aamer Ahmed Atozai welcomed the speakers and guests for making time to express unflinching solidarity with the oppressed people in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
He also emphasized the importance of the “Youm-e-Istehsal” and the continued struggle of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination. Consul General Atozai stated that the Indian government’s acts, aimed at demographic changes in Jammu and Kashmir, were a clear attempt to change the region’s Muslim-majority character. Issuing more than 4.2 million domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris, seizing land, and permitting non-Kashmiris to buy property and register to vote, are all part of a settler-colonial project that is a complete violation of global law. The Ambassador said that this project aims to disempower and disenfranchise the Kashmiris, and it constitutes a war crime under global law.”
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