Islamabad: Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif said on Wednesday that Kashmir is an unfinished point on the 1947 partition agenda of the subcontinent and “Pakistan and Kashmir are inseparable.”
“While we wish peace and stability in the region, we want Kashmir’s just resolution in the light of [the] UN resolution and as per aspirations of Kashmiris to bring lasting peace in the region,” the army chief said.
Sharif, who was speaking at the National Defence University in Islamabad, also said that the “contours of future war are fast changing.”
“While our enemies are supporting terrorism to stoke sub-conventional conflicts and destabilise our country, we are fully determined and capable of defeating their nefarious designs,” the general said.
The army chief said Pakistan is opposed to using proxies against other countries and will not allow any country to use proxies against it either.
He said the “noteworthy achievements” in the ongoing antiterrorism military operation Zarb-e-Azb “have created a space for a decisive surge against terrorists in urban areas” of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, spokesman of the Pakistani foreign ministry rejected the remarks by his Indian counterpart, in which he claimed the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the regions of Gilgit and Baltistan are an integral part of India.
In a statement the spokesman reminded India that Kashmir is an internationally recognised dispute, pending final settlement through a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices, as enshrined in numerous UN Resolutions.
“Under these resolutions no material change is allowed, yet India, in complete violation of these resolutions, calls it a state of the union,” the spokesman said.
The Indian description of the elections being held in Gilgit-Baltistan on the eighth of this month “as an attempt by Pakistan to camouflage its forcible and illegal occupation of the regions,” is interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan, he said.
The spokesman said it is actually India which is unlawfully occupying the territories of Jammu and Kashmir.
“To maintain its illegal hold on that disputed territory, India has deployed over seven hundred thousand of its forces, atrociously tries to suppress majority voice of Kashmiri Muslims and holds sham elections at gunpoint,” he said.
The spokesman said the dispute stems from India’s constant refusal to implement the relevant Security Council Resolutions, which provide for a just solution of the Kashmir issue.
“India’s position on Kashmir is one of utter disregard to the UN Resolutions, a consistent pattern of forceful occupation, denial of the inalienable right of self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.”
