IN his candid UN speech, Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar sensitized the world community on several issues of interest to Pakistan as well as other members of the civilized world, exposing mask from the ugly face of India, responsibility of the world body to ensure grant of right to self-determination to Kashmiris as per its own resolutions, unbreakable relations between Pakistan and China, selective provision of climate change funds on the basis of geo-political considerations, need to avoid resurgence of old military and political blocs and plight of Palestinian people.
There is a general impression that the PM eloquently represented Pakistan not just at different forums of the UN but also during his interaction with world leaders, strongly conveying the country’s point of view on a host of important issues. The well-worded speech showed the interests of the country and regional and global peace and security were foremost priorities in drafting the address for an important occasion. Kakar highlighted Pakistan’s peace credentials by declaring in categorical terms that the country wants peace with all countries of the globe and that the world community should convince India to accept Pakistan’s offer of mutual restraint on strategic and conventional weapons. Reminding the UN that its resolutions on Kashmir remain unimplemented for decades, the Prime Minister described them as ‘the key to peace’ between the two nuclear armed neighbours. He pointed out that these resolutions envisage that the fate of the disputed Himalayan territory to be decided by its people through a UN-supervised plebiscite whereas India is not only avoiding fulfilment of the pledges made before the world community in this regard but also deployed 900,000 troops in IIOJK after the revocation of Kashmir’s special status on August 5, 2019, in order to impose the “final solution to Kashmir”. The PM deplored that the term terrorism was selectively being used ignoring rising threat posed by far-right extremist and fascist groups like Hindutva-inspired extremists, threatening genocide against Indian Muslims and Christians alike. India is also guilty of state-sponsored terrorism as underlined by its policies in Occupied Kashmir and recent killing of a Sikh leader in Canada by its intelligence agency RAW, sparking global debate on Indian involvement in state-sponsored terrorism. The global community also needs to consider seriously the warning of Pakistan Prime Minister that the world cannot afford re-emergence of military and political blocs at a time when there is need to foster cooperation to promote socio-economic development in the aftermath of Covid-19, conflicts and climate change.
