ISLAMABAD, April 10: The Pakistan People’s Party has expressed resentment over remarks of President Gen Pervez Musharraf against PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

The PPP Central Secretary Information, ex-senator Taj Haider, in a statement issued here on Wednesday, deplored “angry and irresponsible” remarks in public meetings.

He termed the remarks against the twice-elected first woman prime minister of the Muslim World, Benazir Bhutto, at a public meeting highly unjust.

Haider said the critics of the PPP should not forget that the deterrent capacity of the armed forces was built by none else but “the PPP founding Chairman Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto.” The late Bhutto, he added, had paid for this with his life.

The ex-senator went on to say that “both Shaheed Bhutto and his daughter brought the Kashmir issue to the attention of the international community and mobilized the world opinion in support of the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people by following a determined and consistent policy of peace with honour.”

During the tenure of Benazir Bhutto, he said, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was given international recognition and invited to address the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Casablanca in 1995.

Again, it was during her tenure that the Labour Party in the UK adopted a resolution at its annual convention describing Kashmir issue as a threat to peace, and pledging to find its resolution, the PPP leader pointed out.

“It is a pity that the subsequent policy of alternating between adventurism and capitulation had done greatest damage to our principled stand on Kashmir,” he added.

Haider was of the view that the policy of the military government had done the greatest damage to the cause of Kashmir and tarnished the great sacrifices of the Kashmiri people.

Rejecting the accusation of supporting Taliban, he reminded Musharraf that “it was a matter of record that only after the overthrow of Benazir Bhutto’s elected government the Taliban administration was recognized by Pakistan.”—PPI