PM Imran Khan asks world powers to play role to resolve Kashmir issue

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – Prime Minister Imran Khan has asked the world powers to play their role to resolve the Kashmir issue. In an interview with a Russian channel on Saturday, he said: “A clash between two nuclear powers could worsen if the issue went out of control,” he said, adding no sane person can talk about a nuclear war. The prime minister said that India wants to divert the world attention from Kashmir. “We should hope for good. But we are ready to deal with any situation,” he said. PM Imran Khan said that about 30,000-100,000 people have been martyred during the last three decades in the Occupied Kashmir. “Eight million people are currently under siege in Kashmir and there is no news coming out of there. Some 4,000 people have been picked by Indian forces in Occupied Kashmir, with a curfew imposed there. We fear that an unprecedented oppression is taking place there,” he said. Imran Khan said that India annexed Occupied Kashmir unilaterally. “This situation naturally cannot be accepted by the people of the Valley.” To a question, the prime minister said that he doesn’t think that the world has reacted as it should have. “The response of the international community is not what we expected,” he maintained. “The UN has the responsibility to act now. The US, France, Germany, Russia and other countries should step forward to play their role.” India, he added, has been taken over by a ‘fascist, racist government’ and by the extremist ideology of the hardline organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Imran Khan highlighted that as opposed to India’s claims, Kashmir is not their internal matter and this is also true according to the charter of the United Nations. He pointed out that a plebiscite or referendum never took place in Kashmir despite passage of resolutions by the UN in this regard. On August 5, India's ruling party stripped Kashmiris of the special autonomy they had for seven decades through a rushed presidential order. By repealing Article 370 of the constitution, people from the rest of India will now have the right to acquire property in occupied Kashmir and settle there permanently. Kashmiris as well as critics of India’s Hindu nationalist-led government see the move as an attempt to dilute the demographics of Muslim-majority Kashmir with Hindu settlers.