F.P. Report
LAHORE: Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the chief of a key allied party in the PTI-led governing coalition, has said the US president should pitch the idea of an autonomous Kashmir instead of pushing for the 72-year-old UN resolutions on the disputed Himalayan region.
President Trump should push for other options, including an autonomous Kashmir, as the 72-year-old UN resolutions “appear to have faded” in the record books of the international body, said the PML-Q chief while speaking to AJK’s former prime minister Sardar Atiq during a meeting in Lahore on Wednesday.
The US president should play the role of “re conciliator” instead of offering “mediation” between Pakistan and India. “If he [Trump] can help resolve the Kashmir dispute and end the suffering of millions of Kashmiris, President Trump would easily win another term in office,” Shujaat said.
President Trump, who recently toured India for two days, reiterated his offer to mediate between Pakistan and India to find a political solution to the Kashmir dispute.
“Kashmir has been a thorn in the back for both sides. I am ready to help, to mediate,” he said at a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi’s unlawful move
On August 5 last year, India stripped Occupied Kashmir of the special autonomy it had for seven decades through a rushed presidential order.
By repealing Article 370 of the constitution, people from the rest of India now have the right to acquire property in the disputed valley and settle there permanently.
Kashmiris see the move as an attempt to dilute the demographics of Muslim-majority Kashmir with Hindu settlers.
Pakistan had strongly condemned the move and is exercising all possible options to counter the illegal steps taken by the government in New Delhi.
