KARACHI: Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Mohammad Yaqoob Khan has said that India is the biggest hurdle in the way of peace and progress in the subcontinent.

Addressing a press conference at PPP Sindh’s media cell here on Sunday, he urged the international community to keep an eye on Indian policies in the region.

Sardar Yaqoob expressed gratitude to the government of Pakistan for taking a firm stand before India over the issue of Kashmir.

He said Pakistan had always extended its full support to the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination, adding that people of Kashmir appreciated Pakistan’s policy.

He called upon the world powers to take notice on humanitarian grounds of the repression by the Indian forces in held Kashmir.

The AJK president said that Kashmir issue was an important part of the PPP manifesto and the then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had declared that Pakistan was prepared to fight against India for the Kashmir cause for a thousand years. When Benazir Bhutto became prime minister, he recalled, she had arranged for the leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq, to meet world leaders.

Referring to the cancellation of NSA-level talks in Delhi, which were to start on Sunday, he said India had backed out of negotiations because Pakistan had concrete proof of RAW’s involvement in acts of terrorism in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh.

He said India was against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and was trying to sabotage the project because it did not want to see economic progress in the region.

The AJK president condemned firing by Indian troops on the Working Boundary and Line of Control.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2015

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