SAUDI Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has said that Kashmir is a disputed territory, stressing that the Kingdom is ready to play its role in resolving the issue, as well as easing tension between Pakistan and India.
In an interview during his maiden visit to India, he emphasized that Pakistan and India should focus on a path of dialogue to resolve issues in a way that can settle concerns permanently.
As Saudi Arabia enjoyed a unique position in the Islamic world, the Muslim Ummah expects it to play a lead role in promoting Muslim causes, help resolve issues involving Muslims and alleviate sufferings of the oppressed Muslim communities.
Riyadh has not disappointed the Muslim world as it has been playing a proactive role on all these accounts despite intricacies of regional and global politics.
The Saudi offer to play a role in resolving the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir and easing tension between Pakistan and India is a welcome development as the Kingdom was surely in a position to do so because of extremely cordial relations with Pakistan and a strong leverage with India.
The most important aspect of the statement of the Saudi Foreign Minister is that he did not mince words while giving an interview during his India visit and plainly stated that Kashmir was a dispute and had to be resolved.
This would, hopefully, serve as a reminder to rulers in New Delhi that they cannot hoodwink the international public opinion by their illegal actions aimed at changing the legal, constitutional, historical and demographic status of the disputed territory.
It is a dispute and would remain as such till its resolution in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and the will of the Kashmiri people, who are waging a relentless struggle for their birth right.
The remarks of the Saudi Foreign Minister are also a snub to self-centred analyses by some sections of India media claiming that the Kingdom has adopted a neutral position on the issue of J&K.
In fact, Saudi Arabia has all along been espousing the just cause of Kashmiri people at all available regional and global forums especially from the platform of OIC Contact Group on Kashmir.
Earlier too, the Saudi Minister poured cold water over India’s false expectations by categorically announcing during the Niamey meeting of the OIC last year that peace and security of South Asia was not possible without the settlement of the Kashmir conflict.
The latest phase of tension in relations between Pakistan and India has its origin in New Delhi’s illegal actions of 2019 and an improvement in ties is only possible if India retracts these measures and expresses genuine willingness for a substantive dialogue on Kashmir issue.
