• Thanks nations that refused to attend tourism conference in held Kashmir
• Says India abusing G20 presidency to push its colonial agenda

BAGH: India is abusing its presidency of the G20 by holding a tourism conference in held Kashmir, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Tuesday and urged the leading industrial and emerging-market nations to be as outraged at the violation of international law in Kashmir as in Europe.

“I wish I could say I was surprised, but I think that this is a continuation in what is becoming a norm now, of India’s arrogance on the international stage,” he told AFP in an interview in Muza­ffa­rabad, capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

“They are abusing their presidency of the G20 to push their colonial agenda, but if they think that by holding one event in occupied Kashmir they can silence the voice of the Kashmiri people, then I believe that they are truly mistaken.”

The G20 participants — made up of the European Union and the world’s 19 top economies — have been “put in a pretty awkward spot”, Mr Bhutto-Zardari said.

“Those countries who make it a point to remind us and protest how outrageous it is that international law has been violated in Europe: I believe that they should be just as outraged when international law is violated in Kashmir,” he said, in reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Separately, in a grand rally on Tuesday in Bagh, some 100 kilometres from Muzaffarabad, the foreign minister expressed gratitude to all the nations for adopting a principled stance as per the UN resolutions and international laws and avoiding participation in the controversial G20 tourism conference in an internationally recognised disputed territory under India’s illegal occupation.

“We would like to salute our Chinese, Saudi and Turkish brethren as well as all other countries who refused [Narendra] Modi and G20’s invitation for the sake of the Kashmiri people,” he said.

“The countries that did attend either downgraded their participation or are present in protest. You can take any international publication and see whether their [Indian] aim to portray Kashmir as a normalised region has been achieved. How can they send a message of normalisation when thousands of their soldiers are still in Kashmir?” he said.

He said it was his first visit to Bagh as the foreign minister and he was representing each citizen and party of the country.

The foreign minister made it clear that Pakistan, being a pro-peace party in the dialogue, would be willing to hold talks when India reversed the status of occupied Kashmir to the pre-Aug 5, 2019 position.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2023