WASHINGTON, May 31: Kashmiri-American Council Executive Director Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai has said the Kashmiris were not asking for a “special dispensation” but for the basic and inalienable right of self-determination.

Speaking at the National Press Club here on “Preventing nuclear war between India and Pakistan,” which was carried live by C-SPAN television, Dr Fai noted the urgency of finding a peaceful solution in Kashmir because of current nuclear threat in South Asia.

He said the Kashmir conflict was not a border dispute between India and Pakistan, a quarrel between Hindus and Muslims, or an issue of autonomy, but a question of political destiny and future of 13 million people, who have lived under occupation for the last 54 years.

The event was sponsored by American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice. The other panelists included T. Schaffer, director, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Zahid Bukhari, director, Muslims for American Public Square at Georgetown University and Dr Rajish Kadian, author.

Fai said that under international law, Kashmir was a disputed territory, a position the United States had always accepted. Under agreements between India and Pakistan, negotiated by the United Naytions through a commission set for the purpose, and endorsed by the Security Council, the territory’s status was to be determined by the free vote of its people under UN supervision.

The Kashmiri uprising was not secessionist or separatist but a movement against foreign occupation, an occupation that was expected to end under determinations made by the United Nations, he said and added that the Kashmiris could not be called “separatists” because they had never acceded to India in the first place.

He insisted that a mediator like South African leader Nelson Mandela was pivotal to breaking the India-Pakistan ice over Kashmir, and that nothing was possible without the inclusion and consensus of the genuine leaders of the people of Kashmir.

Fai said the US emphasis on reducing tensions between India and Pakistan rather than helping settle the basic issue of Kashmir “encourages superficial moves and makeshift solutions that do not ease the tension or allay the Kashmiri’s life and death concerns and anxieties.”—APP