ISLAMABAD – In an article published in *The Washington Post*linkonTuesday, Ambassador Khan said India’s revocation of Kashmir’s specialstatus is a slap in the face of a renewed American commitment to solve theKashmir dispute.
Referring to President Donald Trump’s recent offers to mediate theIndo-Pakistan dispute, the ambassador said India’s unilateral action inKashmir makes “plain to the world the depth of India’s arrogantindifference to the region’s peace and stability.”
“In the past, diplomatic support from our allies helped lower tensions.This is why it is more urgent than ever for the United States to do what itcan to prevent India from precipitating another crisis,” wrote AmbassadorKhan.
“A long and painstaking US-led reconciliation effort, which has beensupported by Pakistan, has brought peace within our grasp in Afghanistan.”
The Pakistani envoy further wrote, “The time is now for the United Statesto make good on Trump’s offer of mediation – not for Pakistan’s sake or forIndia’s sake, but for the sake of the only people who have not been heardsince India gagged them a week ago: the people of Kashmir themselves …”
“The territorial dispute of Jammu and Kashmir – one of the oldest on theUnited Nations’ agenda – is the legacy of the end, in 1947, of British rulein the Indian subcontinent. The people of Kashmir have now been waiting for72 years to exercise their right to decide their future, which was promisedto them, repeatedly, by India.”
Khan wrote that Narendra Modi’s government’s decision to scrap Article 370“shows that India is no longer willing to pay even lip service to itsinternational obligations.”
“It is the logical culmination of the reign of terror unleashed by India onKashmiris that began in 1947 and continues to this day, but which hasassumed an even more virulent form since 2016.”
“It is the people of Kashmir who are suffering while leaders and supportersof India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have cheered as their governmenthas shut down internet services, electricity and telephone lines inKashmir, and arrested hundreds of Kashmiri leaders.”
He said August 5 “sounded the final death knell for India’s increasinglytenuous claims to be a secular democracy.”
“In fact, the right-wing BJP’s project to remake India (not just occupiedKashmir) is neither secular nor democratic. Instead, the BJP envisions afuture in which India’s long-suffering Muslims, Christians, lower-casteHindus and other religious minorities and tribes are formally relegated tothe status of unpersons.”
Khan also addressed New Delhi’s claims against Islamabad and said “Indiawill [this time] not be able to trot out the familiar boogeymen of‘cross-border terrorism’ and ‘Pakistan’ to draw attention away from theugly reality of its occupation and oppression in Kashmir.”
The ambassador criticised the BJP’s “rash and irresponsible actions” whichhe said “have also put South Asia on the brink of conflict for the secondtime in less than six months.”
“Prime Minister [Imran] Khan, who has made repeated offers of dialogue toIndia since assuming office last year, recently warned the internationalcommunity of catastrophic consequences should India’s latest act ofrecklessness lead to conflict. This, he stressed, is the reality of anyconflict between the two countries that are armed with the weapons thatboth India and Pakistan possess.”