Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Pakistan should vacate the occupied territory in Kashmir' that was published in Newsband

Pakistan should vacate the occupied territory in Kashmir

Prime Ministers of both India and Pakistan attended the United Nations General Assembly. Both Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif stayed in New York at the same hotel and attended the same conference along with world leaders, and yet did not make the time for a bilateral meeting — they settled for a simple hand-waving gesture while at the peacekeeping summit. Sharif referred to Kashmir as a land “under foreign occupation”, India in reply brought up the condition of Kashmiris in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), saying it was up to Pakistan to vacate Kashmir and not the other way round. India dismissed Sharif’s four-point formula that included points on demilitarising Kashmir and the Siachen glacier.

Despite all its attempts over the years, Pakistan has been unsuccessful in getting the United Nations or the P-5 Security Council members to consider any reference on Kashmir; in fact, every P-5 nation has counselled both countries to resolve the issue bilaterally.

As an active aspirant to a permanent seat in the Security Council, India’s stature would be enhanced internationally if it sets in motion a bilateral process to resolve issues with its neighbour, with a view to ending the decades-old dispute.

Kashmir issue is a reality which needs to be addressed. Instead of clicking on to their own narratives, both the countries should come to resolve the issue for the sake of billions starving people so that the budget spent on arms pileup could be utilized for the betterment of humanity.

The fact is that Pakistan has occupied some part of Kashmir, and if at all, they want peace, then they must vacate the occupied territory. This was never said by our earlier governments. Now, the present government has taken a rightful stand in UN.

No doubt the stalemate on Kashmir has made it unpleasant topic to discuss. It is better to tackle the coming problem half way by taking the fight into enemy territory - in this case literally - i.e. Paki occupied part of J&K.

For 68 long years we have discussed the same issue a thousand times and the only results have been more intransigence on the part of Pakistan, letting loose a violent jihadi terrorism upon us even while the same terrorism is engulfing it to the point of complete destruction,

How can India set anything in motion when the Pakistani army has no desire to engage in any conversation short of flying the Pakistani flag in Delhi? Kashmir is merely an excuse for their continued desire of a state of war. India has done well to dismiss Pakistan and put it in the bucket of countries that need to be ignored until they negotiate on our terms.

PoK is a part of J&K. If J&K has been agreed upon as a bilateral issue by the international community, the entire focus should be on PoK especially on questions such as how the composition of the population there has changed over the decades, how terrorists organization operate from their with impunity, why is Pakistan selling off PoK to China, what fundamental rights people of PoK have, etc.