Doha, 06 Oct 2024 (Media Reports)

India on Friday announced that External Affairs minister S. Jaishankar will travel to Pakistan to attend a conclave of the SCO in mid-October. Commenting on the visit, Mir Waiz Umar Farooq, the Chief Cleric of City’s Jamia Masjid (Sri Nagar, Indian Occupied Kashmir grand mosque) posted on ‘X’ that he hopes both India and Pakistan initiate dialogue on sidelines of the summit, Hindustan Times reported yesterday.

“After more than 5 years, mostly spent under house detention, when J&K, in the August of 2019, went through the rude shock and humiliation of losing its semi-autonomous status, was broken into two parts, downgraded to a union territory followed by a no-holds-barred clampdown and communication blackout, I return to this platform with the same hope of peace and justice for the people of Jammu & Kashmir that I have always desired.

‘Despite increased challenges, the resolve for peaceful resolution of the conflict remains stronger than ever. Generations of Kashmiris have been consumed by the uncertainty. We want an end to it, a fair closure. India and Pakistan have a real opportunity at the upcoming SCO Summit to break the ice and engage constructively. Hope they heed to it’, Mirwaiz wrote on X.

On Friday, Mirwaiz had addressed a big rally at city’s Jamia Masjid and urged central government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to be pragmatic and start a dialogue over Jammu and Kashmir issue’s resolution, while Hurriyat was ready to assist in the endeavour.

He said the elections were no solution to the J&K issue and the issue stands even after the unilateral decisions taken in 2019. ‘Hurriyat Conference always maintained that we are not against elections but we are against presenting the elections as a solution to the Kashmir issue. Elections can be for roads, power and water but can’t resolve Kashmir dispute. These are two separate issues. One is civic issues and the other is resolution oriented,” he said adding that he agrees elections were held and people voted but for what this voting was. “There were unilateral measures you took after 2019 in J&K , the way Kashmiris were humiliated and people are fearful in matters of land, jobs and civic issues,” he had said.

ANI news agency reported about a post on ‘X’ by MP Kapil Sibal, member Indian parliament’s Upper House asking ‘What has India gained ? What has Pakistan lost?” as Jaishankar to travel to Pakistan for SCO Summit

AlJazeera Network reported in its report that India’s foreign minister has ruled out discussing bilateral relations with rival Pakistan as he is scheduled to embark on his first trip to the neighboring country in nearly a decade to attend the 2024 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told reporters on Saturday that he expects “a lot of media interest” in the possibility of speaking to his Pakistani counterpart at the two-day summit about the two countries’ relations, which remain in a deep freeze since a deadly armed attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019.

“But I do want to say it will be for a multilateral event. I am not going there to discuss India-Pakistan relations,” he added. “I am going there to be a good member of the SCO, but since I am a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself accordingly’.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs confirmed on Friday that Jaishankar would attend the summit from October 15 to 16, which India chaired last year, but did not say if he would meet any Pakistani leaders on the sidelines.

Region of Kashmir in South East Asia is the oldest conflict waiting to solve since October 1947 in UN Security Council where India and Pakistan then newly created states on the world map agreed with the resolution adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), providing that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute would be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices providing the right to decide merging either with Pakistan or India.