The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Contact Group on Kashmir has reaffirmed its support to Kashmiris’ struggle for realization of their inalienable right to self-determination in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council’s resolutions.
Ministers of Foreign Affairs and senior officials of Pakistan, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Niger met on the sidelines of 78th session of UN General Assembly in New York with Secretary General of the OIC, Hissein Brahim Taha, in the chair.
A joint communiqué issued after the meeting declared that the final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions is indispensable for durable peace and stability in South Asia. It expressed serious concern over the statements by the Indian political leaders as well as senior military officers about their readiness to attack Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, calling such statements a serious threat to regional peace and stability.
The communiqué demanded of India to reverse all illegal and unilateral measures taken on or after 5 August 2019, stop the gross, systematic and widespread human rights abuses in the IIOJK, halt and reverses the illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, release all Kashmiri political prisoners and rescind the trumped-up and fallacious charges against the Kashmiri leadership. It also demanded that India should repeal all restrictive and draconian laws, allow unrestricted access to UN Special Procedures, OIC and Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission fact-finding missions, international media and independent observers to visit IIOJK.
The communiqué rejected the conduct of the G-20 Tourism Working Group Meeting, held in Srinagar on 22-24 May 2023, which was aimed to legitimize India’s illegal occupation and sought to project a facade of normalcy in IIOJK. The member states expressed concern over the seizure of the office of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Srinagar and condemned the ongoing campaign to confiscate the properties of Kashmiri activists. It denounced the Indian authorities’ fresh plea seeking death penalty for one of the renowned Kashmiri leaders Yasin Malik, who is incarcerated and has already been awarded life imprisonment.
