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ISLAMABAD, Feb 12: Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said in Istanbul on Tuesday labelling self-determination struggles as terrorism was inconsistent with the UN Charter, and called for peaceful resolution of international disputes in “conformity with the principles of justice and international law.”
Sattar said: “Some states divert attention from their acts of terrorism by labelling self-determination struggles as terrorist. That is inconsistent with the UN Charter,” he told an OIC-EU Joint Forum on “Civilization and Harmony: The Political Dimension.”
The two-day meeting, which began in Istanbul on Tuesday, is being participated by around 40 countries from the OIC and the EU, most at the ministerial level.
Sattar said: “The UN Charter affirms the right of self- determination of peoples.
“The right of self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir has been recognized. India and Pakistan are pledged to allow the Kashmiri people to decide their own destiny in an impartial plebiscite.
“That pledge remains sanctified in the resolutions of the Security Council.”
The minister said a sagacious approach to a better future for humanity was distilled in the principles of UN Charter.
He said: “To save people from the scourge of war, settlement of international disputes should be brought about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.”
He further said: “Civilization is the reverse of a brutish way of life in which physical strength or military power is the arbiter of relations among individuals and states .... A civilized community stresses impartial settlement of disputes.”
The Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Sattar said: “represent humanity’s dream road to a future better than the past.”
RELIGION OF PEACE: He recalled that the OIC countries were one with the rest of the world in condemning the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
“Islam,” he said, “is a religion of peace, of tolerance, of diversity and respect for other faiths.”
Terrorism had no sanction in any religion, said the minister. “It is a pernicious phenomenon.”
“No religion can be held responsible for .... vicious crimes. No cause can justify terrorism,” he added.
The minister also emphasized that just ends should be pursued by just means. “Struggle for freedom, self-determination and human rights are intrinsically just.”
These struggles, he said, had been historically peaceful at the start. If they took to militancy and violence, it was usually in response to violent repression by their rulers, he added.
Sattar said nations were torn by the controversy encapsulated in the phrase ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’.
Bhagat Singh was convicted and hanged in 1931 after he had shot and killed a police inspector of the colonial power and thrown a bomb in the legislative assembly in Delhi. He was immediately proclaimed as “The Great Martyr,” he observed.
INTERACTION: Civilized world community, he said, could not allow itself to fall into a verbal trap. “Terrorism must be condemned in all its forms and manifestations.”
He called for the need of settling the definition of terrorism in the UN General Assembly to facilitate the early conclusion of the comprehensive convention on terrorism.
The minister lauded the Turkish government for conceiving the idea of holding the joint forum. “It is an idea whose time has come.”
He further said civilizations had always interacted, and to mutual benefit.
“The influence of the Greeks on sculpture is a part of our rich heritage in Pakistan. That of Muslim Arabs is writ large on architecture in Spain. They contributed to the spread of classical and contemporary knowledge of that period and to the rise of the European civilization.”
Knowledge had been the key to the renaissance of human societies, he said, adding: “Read is the first exhortation to Muslims,” who had been urged to seek knowledge even if they had to go to the farthest part of the world.—APP
