ISTANBUL, Türkiye: Speakers at an international conference here Called for respect for the fundamental rights of the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir and also sought the resolution of the Kashmir issue on the basis of UN resolutions.
Activists, lawmakers, diplomats and civil society members from Türkiye, Pakistan, Kuwait and Kashmir were speaking at the conference hosted by a Britain-based Kashmiri rights organization, Tehreek-e-Kashmir UK.
Delivering the resolution of the conference, Kashmiri activist Fahim Kayani said: “It is a fact that the situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir has dramatically changed, particularly since August 5, 2019, and it will not be an exaggeration to say that the people of occupied land are facing an existential threat.”
Lauding the support and principled stand taken by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Kashmir, the resolution termed India’s move to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 “illegal.”
The resolution also “rejected any process to justify local elections in any form whatsoever and present them before the international community as a vote of confidence in the Indian settler regime in Kashmir.”
Seeking the “unconditional and immediate” release of Kashmiri leaders, the participants called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to remind India…that the Kashmir issue has to be resolved in accordance with the UN Charter and applicable UN Security Council resolutions.”
Divided Jammu and Kashmir
On August 5, 2019, India repealed Article 370 of its Constitution, which allowed Jammu and Kashmir its own constitution, flag and two-house legislature that could frame its own laws.
Previously a single state, Jammu and Kashmir was downgraded and divided into two centrally-ruled union territories called Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The move drew sharp reactions from both Pakistan, which claims the region in full, and China, which claims parts of Ladakh and controlled a sizable part of Jammu and Kashmir before the formation of India and Pakistan in 1947.
