Our Correspondent
Muzaffarabad
The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has said that Turkey has emerged as a centre of hope for the Muslim world, and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan has risen as a symbol of the renaissance of Islam.
He expressed these views while addressing a send-off ceremony held in honour of the faculty members and students of the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir proceeding to Turkey for higher studies under the Turkish Council of Higher Education International Scholarship Program 2020.
The ceremony held at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Friday was also addressed by the Turkish Ambassador in Pakistan Ihsan Mustafa Yurdakul, Vice-Chancellor AJK University Prof. Dr Kalim Abbasi, Prof Dr Naeem Qureshi, representative of Higher Education Commission Dr Hassan Jalil Shah and others.
The State President thanked the Turkish government and the Turkish Council of Higher Education for facilitating quality higher education to the faculty and students of the AJK University and said that already excellent relations existed among the peoples of Turkey, Pakistan, and Kashmiri people would further strengthen through this exchange program at the university level.
He maintained that Turkey had always helped Pakistan and the Kashmiri people in every difficult hour and it was the first country to reach to us in the wake of the 2005 earthquake and 2010 flash floods.
He appreciated the Turkish government for adopting a principled stand on the Kashmir issue and the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people.
“The boldness which the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan had demonstrated first in his address to the parliament of Pakistan and later to the UN General Assembly condemning unlawful actions taken by India in occupied Jammu and Kashmir last year, and the forthright support he had declared to the liberation struggle of Kashmiri people, has no precedence,” he added.
