Indo-Pak watchers are quizzed by the sudden and erratic statement of Mian Nawaz Sharif appealing to the US President Obama to intervene between India and Pakistan on Kashmir issue. More surprising is that putting discretion to wind, he issued the appeal while on the US soil and before meeting with Obama. Observers called it diplomatic naivety. But he is an astute politician who has been there for a long time and is not prone to gaffe. Politicians are never impatient with bilateral issues. Therefore the first question to be answered is what are his compulsions to demonstrate a streak of impatience? He is only recently become the helmsman and he knows it better than anybody else that his path is strewn with thorns. But why should Nawaz Sharif put under wraps his debilitating woes like economic downslide, home-bred terrorism, crippling power shortage, ethnic and sectarian holocausts that have held Pakistan in its stranglehold, and shift to Kashmir issue? Is it an escape route adopted for mollifying the rogue Army, audacious ISI and rabid jihadis at home? In simpler words, he has desired to convey to Obama that he is helpless in governing a failed state and would need crutches to support him.
But alas, the official spokesman of the US immediately turned down Nawaz Sharif’s plea and reiterated the traditional policy of the US on Kashmir asserting that it was a bilateral issue lingering on for last six decades and the two sides had to find a solution without intervention from outside. The US will have noted the entire Indian nation, the Government and political parties of all denominations expressing in no ambiguous words their tooth and nail opposition to third party intervention in Kashmir. It is recalled that before and after assuming the charge of prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif is reported to have publicly said that with regard to Kashmir, he was eager to take up the thread where it was left by the two Prime Ministers in 1999. Is his appeal to Obama the way he wants to take up the thread? There is a reason for him to demonstrate infirmity and vacillation on Kashmir issue and it is not too far to seek. The Shimla Agreement leaves no scope for third party intervention. Even the UN has categorically stated that with a bilateral agreement in place, the role of the Security Council in Kashmir case is closed down for all times.
All that Nawaz Sharif has done by making an irrelevant statement is that he has invited a strong and rock-hard commitment from the Indian nation that Kashmir is and shall remain an integral part of the Indian Union. This statement has come from New Delhi at a time when we will be celebrating another anniversary of the landing of Indian liberation forces on the soil of Kashmir on 26 October 1947. The hard message is that of reiteration of the unanimous resolution of the Indian Parliament to take back take back the part of the original State that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan. We will extend all possible support to the freedom struggle in Gilgit-Baltistan and in PoK. We duly acknowledge the sacrifices made by the people of these areas to wriggle out of the stranglehold of Islamabad and rejoin the parent state. They have the right of seeking external support to their freedom struggle.
Three wars, one ongoing proxy war, and numerous perfidies like attacks on parliament, assembly, economic hub of India, infiltration bids, disinformation campaign, smuggling of fake currency notes and many other subterfuges did not earn Pakistan an inch of Kashmir nor shall she ever dream of it.
Nawaz Sharif should have sought Obama’s intervention in Baluchistan where the State of Pakistan is at war with the Baluchs nationals who are fighting for separation as their right to forge self- governance. He should have sought the intervention of Obama in fighting rogues and rascals of extremist religious organizations in his country who have unleashed terror against the Christians, Ahmadiyas, Shias and Hindu minorities. He should have sought the intervention of Obama in regaining the good name of his country and washing away the humiliating appendage of “the mother of international terrorism.” Pakistan should forget Kashmir and divert all her effort towards licking and dying up her six-decade and more old Kashmir wounds.
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