ISLAMABAD: Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain held out an olive branch to neighbour India as he addressed the national day military parade on Thursday.
The event was embellished with aerobatics and a fly-past by warplanes as well as a display of weaponry including indigenously-built short and long range missiles.
The parade was the highlight of the Pakistan Day commemorating the historic March 23, 1940 event when Muslims of the subcontinent formally demanded a separate homeland, leading to the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
“Pakistan is ready to hold negotiations with India and also wants to resolve the issue of Kashmir in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations,” the Pakistani president said in his address on the occasion.
President Hussain regretted what he called “irresponsible attitude of India,” blaming the neighbour for continuous violations of ceasefire at the Line of Control, which divides the Pakistani and Indian-controlled parts of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
He termed Kashmir an “unfinished agenda of the subcontinent’s partition,” in 1947. The dispute over Kashmir has caused two of the three wars since independence between Pakistan and India, both now armed with nuclear weapons.
Hussain’s comments came a day after his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee, congratulated Pakistan on its Republic Day but said that India would build “ties with Pakistan in an environment free from terror and violence.”
The president said Pakistan would continue to extend moral, political and diplomatic support to the struggle of Kashmiri people to secure their right to self-determination in accordance with the 1948-49 UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir.
He urged the international community to fulfil its obligation so as to realise the “dream of regional stability and sustainable peace.”
Referring to Pakistan’s ongoing campaign to wipe out terrorism he lauded the services of the country’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies and vowed that the fight would continue till complete elimination of the menace.
A special feature of the mitary parade this year was the participation of contingents of troops from China and Saudi Arabia as well as Turkey’s oldest Meheter military band, in a show of deepening ties with the world’s only declared Islamic nuclear power.
Thousands of people chanted “Long Live Pakistan” as the country’s armed forces showed off short- and long-range missiles, tanks, jets, drones and other military hardware at a stadium in the capital, Islamabad.
Pakistani troops, including female soldiers, marched past the country’s political and military leadership.
