F.P. Report
WASHINGTON: Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Qureshi is on the final leg of his tri-state visit aimed at diffusing US-Iran tensions, as instructed by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
During the meeting, Qureshi also briefed Pompeo about discussions held during his visits to Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Matters concerning the Pakistan-US relationship, bilateral cooperation and the regional situation were also discussed in the meeting.
Qureshi during the meeting said that Pakistan desires peace and stability and is determined to play its role to defuse prevailing tensions in the region, the Foreign Office said in a statement.
He informed Pompeo about India’s continuing human rights violations in occupied Kashmir, saying eight million people in the occupied region have been “kept confined” through a curfew imposed by New Delhi for the past five months.
He noted that a communications blackout in the valley remains in place in order “to conceal the facts from the world’s view”.
“The dream of ‘peaceful South Asia’ of the US and Pakistan cannot be realised until the Kashmir dispute is resolved in accordance with United Nations resolutions and through a plebiscite of eight million Kashmiris,” the FO quoted Qureshi as saying.
