ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Kashmiri leaders on June 24 was a drama that produced nothing.
While addressing a News Conference in Islamabad on Friday, the minister said that the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leadership was not invited to the meeting.
The finance minister said that the Hurriyat leadership has been demanding resolution of the Kashmir dispute as per the UN Security Council resolutions and the aspirations of Kashmiris and they reiterated their stance in the meeting.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that the Kashmiri leaders unanimously demanded the reversal of India’s illegal acts of August 5, 2019 and full-fledged restoration of statehood.
Qureshi said that Modi’s illegal acts about Kashmir two years ago badly damaged his image within the Country as well as at the international level, and he wanted to repair the damage through this meeting.
The foreign minister said that Kashmiris were not given any solid reply to their demand. He said that they were told that the decision about restoration of the special status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) will be taken at an appropriate time which is an ambiguous statement.
The minister said that the Kashmiri leaders also demanded the release of political prisoners, an end to the extra-judicial killings, and the reversal of the illegal universal acts.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that these demands are being made by those Kashmiri leaders who had been part of the previous governments in IIOJK.
The finance minister said that the Kashmiri leadership’s talk after the meeting suggests that the Indian government’s claim that the August 5, 2019 steps would bring prosperity to Kashmir is completely baseless.
