Special Correspondent
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday again offered to mediate the Kashmir issue and said it is a “very complicated place”. The offer came a day after Trump had a telephonic conversation with both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Trump said that religion was one of the main reasons for tensions between India and Pakistan. Talking to reporters at White House, he said, “Kashmir is a very complicated place. You have Hindus and you have the Muslims and I wouldn’t say they get along so great. I will do the best I can to mediate,”
US President indicated that he would raise the matter over the weekend with PM Modi on the sidelines of G7 summit.
Earlier, Trump had offered to mediate on Kashmir if India and Pakistan agreed. Last month, during a joint media appearance with Imran Khan, he said that PM Modi sought his “mediation” on the Kashmir issue – a claim which India denied.
Iran urges India for fair policy towards Kashmiri Muslims
The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei while expressing grave concern about the situation in occupied Kashmir has called on the Indian government to adopt a fair policy towards the people of the Muslim-majority region.
Iranian media reported that Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet members in Tehran on Wednesday.
UN Close door consultation
Earlier the rare closed-door consultations on Kashmir by the Security Council ended without any outcome or statement from the powerful 15-nation UN organ, which an overwhelming majority stressed is a bilateral matter between New Delhi and Islamabad.
China had requested for the informal consultations and was pushing for an outcome or a press statement to be delivered after the consultations by Poland, the President of the Security Council for the month of August. The UK also sided with China in calling for a statement to the press.
However, France was paying close attention to the situation in the region, for it the priority was “bilateral dialogue” between India and Pakistan, a position shared by the US and Germany.
Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy, before heading into the Security Council Consultations Room, told reporters that Moscow favours a bilateral track between India and Pakistan.”
This was the first time the council took up the “India-Pakistan Question” – the UN’s term for the Kashmir issue – since 1971…
The latest spell of tensions spiked between India and Pakistan after India on August 5 , 2019 abrogated provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories, evoking strong reactions from Pakistan.
India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was an internal matter and also advised Pakistan to accept the reality.
Pak insecurity feeling
Amid an escalating war of words between Pakistani and Indian leaders, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday asked the world to worry about Indian nuclear weapons under a “fascist” and “racist” government in Delhi. This is an issue that impacts not just the region but the world,” the prime minister said in a series of tweets on India.
PM Khan further said that the Hindu supremacist government in India was not only a threat to its own minorities and “the very fabric of Nehru and Gandhi’s India”, but also to Pakistan. He urged the world to better understand the extremist mindset of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
About the plight of the Indian Muslims, he said: “Already 4m Indian Muslims face detention camps and cancellation of citizenship. World must take note as this genie is out of the bottle & the doctrine of hate and genocide, with RSS goons on the rampage, will spread unless the international community acts now to stop it.”
Meanwhile , Prince Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has telephoned Prime Minister Imran Khan to discuss the situation of the occupied Kashmir.
According to the foreign news agency ‘Al-Arabiya’, both leaders in a telephonic conversation discussed the current situation of the Kashmir. PM Imran apprised the Saudi Prince about the Indian atrocities taking place in the valley after the abrogation of the Article 370.
London protest
Besides the “closed consultations” at the UN Security Council, there has been concern in New Delhi over London’s handling of violence during a protest outside the Indian mission in the British capital on August 15.
The violence was described by Indian quarters in London as “very worrying, unfair and unacceptable” as it amounted to almost a siege of the high commission and “just short” of the building being stormed by protestors.
There has also been concern in Indian quarters about British authorities allowing such a protest and the Foreign Office denying the violence by describing the demonstration as “overwhelmingly peaceful” when London mayor Sadiq Khan had already condemned the violence.
First encounter since abrogation of Art 370
Meanwhile, Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say one of their officers has been killed along with a suspected militant in a gunfight in the region.
This marks the first time Indian officials have reported deaths in the area since Delhi stripped Kashmir of its special status earlier this month.
Indian troops also martyred four Kashmiris in occupied Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Wednesday as the curfew and lockdown entered a 17th consecutive day in the valley.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the four Kashmiri youth were martyred during an all-out operation jointly launched by Indian Army’s Rashtriya Rifles, Central Reserve Police Force and Special Operation Group in Kakarhamam area of the town.
A day earlier, the Indian occupying forces detained 30 people overnight in Srinagar, in a bid to control protests.
Crowds have demonstrated frequently in the city despite a severe clamp-down on phone and internet services and a ban on public gatherings and the detentions of hundreds of political leaders and separatists.
Fight at LOC
Earlier on Wednesday morning, an Indian Army soldier and a civilian were killed while four other jawans were injured in heavy shelling and firing on the Line of Control (LoC) in Mendhar and Krishna Ghati sectors in Poonch district ..
Indian media reported that Pakistan army initiated heavy mortar shelling and firing along the LoC in Mendhar and Krishna Ghati sectors of Poonch district this morning targeting forward posts of the Army and civilian locations with long range mortar shells and heavy arms firing. A Pakistan army officer was also killed in retaliatory action by the Indian troops.
Anti-India marches on Friday
The Kashmir Media Service reported that in occupied Kashmir, Resistance leaders have urged people to defy curfew and other restrictions and conduct big marches on streets after m Jumma prayer on Friday against India’s anti-Kashmir moves and its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir.
The appeal has been made through posters that appeared overnight in Srinagar streets asking people to come out of their houses to thwart the New Delhi’s nefarious designs to change the demography of Kashmir by flooding it with outsiders.
The posters urged clerics to raise the issue during their Friday sermons. The leaders said every person, young and old, men and women, should march to convey to India as well as the world that the Kashmiris would not accept Indian occupation over their territory and the imposition of a Hindu culture.
Meanwhile, curfew and other restrictions continue since August 5 aggravating the plight of the entire besieged population in Kashmir and Pirpanchal valley.
Thursday, September 05, 2019
