MUZAFFARABAD, Nov 8: Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain has welcomed the opening of the Line of Control (LoC), saying it will help people of the Himalayan region make a better decision about their future.

“The Kashmiris have been suffering for more than past 58 years. My stand is clear: Kashmir belongs neither to Pakistan nor to India but to the Kashmiris and only they can make a decision about their future,” he said during a telephonic address from London at the local press club on Tuesday.

He said he had cancelled all engagements and set up a ‘control room’ in London from where he was coordinating with the people involved in relief work. He said that the MQM had sent relief goods worth Rs1 billion and more was in the pipeline.

The MQM, he claimed, was the only party to focus attention on quake victims belonging to the middle class and its ministers, parliamentarians and party workers were doing their best in the quake-hit areas, he added.

He said MQM had long been portrayed as “anti-state, anti-Kashmiri” and against all other ethnic communities of Pakistan.

He said his party did not demand return of Nato.” Whoever is helping you let him do that,” he said and added that had the Islamic countries also extended liberal financial and material aid and sent troops for rescue operations, the situation would have been better.