Imran Khan: The World Can't Ignore Kashmir. We Are All in Danger.

[elleng]

'If the world does nothing to stop the Indian assault on Kashmir and its people, two nuclear-armed states will get ever closer to a direct military confrontation.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After I was elected prime minister of Pakistan last August, one of my foremost priorities was to work for lasting and just peace in South Asia. India and Pakistan, despite our difficult history, confront similar challenges of poverty, unemployment and climate change, especially the threat of melting glaciers and scarcity of water for hundreds of millions of our citizens.

I wanted to normalize relations with India through trade and by settling the Kashmir dispute, the foremost impediment to the normalization of relations between us.

On July 26, 2018, in my first televised address to Pakistan after winning the elections, I stated we wanted peace with India and if it took one step forward, we would take two steps. After that, a meeting between our two foreign ministers was arranged on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in September 2018, but India canceled the meeting. That September I also wrote my first of three letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling for dialogue and peace.

Unfortunately, all my efforts to start a dialogue for peace were rebuffed by India. Initially, we assumed that Mr. Modi’s increasingly hard-line positions and his rhetoric against Pakistan were aimed to whip up a nationalist frenzy among the Indian voters with an eye on the Indian elections in May.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/opinion/imran-khan-kashmir-pakistan.html?

[SWBTATTReg]

1. And of course we have an idiot so called president rump who won't or isn't able to do anything...

whereas B. Obama would have already been involved in this dispute by now, trying to temper things down.

rump is a joke, pure and simple.

[at140]

2. India was divided into 2 countries when that British Colony was disbanded in 1947

The newly formed countries of Pakistan and India both agreed to accept the boundaries for each.
Pakistan kept areas which were predominantly Muslim. India kept the rest with peoples of all religions including many Muslims. Hindu's which lived inside Pakistan boundaries either fled or were driven out.

The country of Pakistan was partly in the East and partly in the west of India. Few decades later the 2 factions could not get along and Pakistan was divided itself in to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both are overwhelmingly Muslim countries.

The province of Kashmir was divided into 2 parts, based on line of control each military had in 1947 when the ceasefire took place. After 82 years, Pakistan still desires accruing entire province based on religion of majority of Kasmiri's.

If all countries decide to sub-divide themselves based on minority religious factions within each country, it will cause nothing but chaos. For example if there an area in Florida which is predominantly Jewish, should that town/city/county be desired by Israel? Or if sections of France are predominantly Muslim, should those area with to become part of Turkey or some other Muslim country?

Pakistan and India need to focus on problems of poverty, clean water, education, health, environment, and focus on bi-lateral trade. Instead they are wasting their energy on re-litigating an 82 year old situation.

[Ghost Dog]

5. Kasmiris now have a right to self-determination

and Kashmir should be independent. From Kashmir's mountains flow the waters of the Indus, Pakistan's main river, so Kashmir is important for geographical and economic reasons to Pakistan. Kashmir seems to be important to India because it is important to Pakistan, and because of religio-nationalist chauvinism.

[at140]

6. How about French speaking Canadians from Canada?

How about the Scots from UK?
How about the Basques from Spain?
How about the Sikhs from majority Hindu India?
How about African-Americans who feel discriminated from United States?
How about Blue states from Red states?
How about non-Muslims in Egypt?
How about minority whites in South Africa?

Why not all of above be allowed to self-determine and break away?
Such pathetically ridiculous idea! It will create more chaos than Katrina caused in New Orleans.

[Ghost Dog]

3. Important. Alternative .pk link here:

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/imran-khan-the-world-cant-ignore-kashmir-we-are-all-in-danger-ny-times.633587/

... On May 23, after Mr. Modi’s re-election, I congratulated him and hoped we could work for “peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia.” In June, I sent another letter to Mr. Modi offering dialogue to work toward peace. Again, India chose not to respond. And we found out that while I was making peace overtures, India had been lobbying to get Pakistan placed on the “blacklist” at the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force, which could lead to severe economic sanctions and push us toward bankruptcy. Evidently Mr. Modi had mistaken our desire for peace in a nuclear neighborhood as appeasement. We were not simply up against a hostile government. We were up against a “New India,” which is governed by leaders and a party that are the products of the Hindu supremacist mother ship, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the R.S.S...

... I had hoped that being elected prime minister might lead Mr. Modi to cast aside his old ways as the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, when he gained global notoriety for the 2002 pogrom against local Muslims on his watch and was denied a visa to travel to the United States under its International Religious Freedom Act — a list of visa denials that included associates of Slobodan Milosevic. Mr. Modi’s first term as prime minister had been marked by lynching of Muslims, Christians and Dalits by extremist Hindu mobs. In Indian-occupied Kashmir, we have witnessed increased state violence against defiant Kashmiris. Pellet-firing shotguns were introduced and aimed at the eyes of young Kashmiri protesters, blinding hundreds.

On Aug. 5, in its most brazen and egregious move, Mr. Modi’s government altered the status of Indian-occupied Kashmir through the revocation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution. The move is illegal under the Constitution of India, but more important, it is a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions on Kashmir and the Shimla Agreement between India and Pakistan.

And Mr. Modi’s “New India” chose to do this by imposing a military curfew in Kashmir, imprisoning its population in their homes and cutting off their phone, internet and television connections, rendering them without news of the world or their loved ones. The siege was followed by a purge: Thousands of Kashmiris have been arrested and thrown into prisons across India. A blood bath is feared in Kashmir when the curfew is lifted. Already, Kashmiris coming out in defiance of the curfew are being shot and killed.

If the world does nothing to stop the Indian assault on Kashmir and its people, there will be consequences for the whole world as two nuclear-armed states get ever closer to a direct military confrontation...

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/imran-khan-the-world-cant-ignore-kashmir-we-are-all-in-danger-ny-times.633587/

[elleng]

4. Thanks

[at140]

7. Foreign minister Jaishankar rebuffs a call for talks from Pakistan's Imran Khan.

https://www.politico.eu/article/india-sees-kashmir-restrictions-easing-in-coming-days/