Fazal Ellahi
The ongoing 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York offers Pakistan a crucial platform to highlight two of the world’s longest-standing injustices — the unresolved disputes of Kashmir and Palestine — and to rally global support for their just and urgent settlement. Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif is expected to use this opportunity to draw international attention to the decades-old suffering of the people of Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IoJK) and the devastation in war-ravaged Gaza. It is no secret that the people of IoJK and Palestine continue to face relentless atrocities and gross human rights violations at the hands of their oppressors — India and Israel, respectively.
In earlier columns published in Pakistan Observer (March 2024) and Daily Times (September 2024), this writer argued that the Kashmir dispute, dangerously volatile as it is, cannot possibly be resolved through bilateral dialogue between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. The only viable path lies in strict adherence to the UN Charter and the 1948 UNSC Resolution on Kashmir, which explicitly recognizes IoJK as a disputed territory and upholds the right of its people to self-determination. In that context, a pertinent question was raised: Why cannot the UN, the US and other global powers exert their influence on India just as they did in the cases of East Timor and South Sudan? With firm international backing, East Timor won independence from Indonesia in 1999 and South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan must now seize this historic moment at the 80th UNGA to urge the UN, the US and other influential powers to prevail upon India to honour the UNSC resolution on Kashmir in letter and spirit. They must be pressed to ensure a UN-supervised plebiscite in IoJK, enabling its people to determine their future. It must be made clear that aspirations for a “productive and peaceful relationship” between India and Pakistan can only materialize once the Kashmir issue is resolved in accordance with the will of its people. At the same time, amid the catastrophic war in Gaza, the world cannot remain silent. Global leaders must acknowledge the urgent need to stand with the dehumanized and besieged Palestinian people.
The international community must intensify pressure on Israel to immediately end the bloodshed and pave the way for a just, peaceful and lasting resolution of the Palestinian question. The only credible path forward is the swift and decisive implementation of the two-state solution: Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people and Palestine — comprising the West Bank and Gaza — as the sovereign homeland of the Palestinian people. This framework, endorsed in the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), also led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority as an interim governing body. In his address to the 80th UNGA, UN Secretary-General António Guterres rightly stressed: “Efforts should be made for urgent implementation of the two-state solution, to achieve permanent and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and to establish a new reality where the region can finally enjoy peace, stability and prosperity.”
—The writer is a columnist and analyst based in Islamabad, Pakistan. ([email protected]
