Kathmandu: Though late but Nepal yet made a restrained account on the Indian action on Kashmir wherein Nepal’s foreign minister Pradip Gyawali rightly said “Nepal as the current chair of SAARC favored regional peace and stability”.
Nepal did not issue a formal statement as such but made its official stance known to the world this Monday in Kathmandu through the effective use of national and international media.
By the way, PM Oli had met with the former senior clerk elevated to Foreign Ministerial rank in private for almost two hours wherein he apparently “begged longevity” of his chair in Nepal.
PM Oli touched a new diplomatic low. Oli has already left for Singapore draining national exchequer. He is the most expensive PM for Nepal.
This malicious private meet with Shankar is sure to abort President Xi’s Nepal visit.
Back on Kashmir, Nepal as a matured nonaligned nation and the SAARC Chair made a tight statement that favored UNSC’s meet which demanded that talks be held in between the two countries and also keeping in mind the UN resolutions made in the previous decades.
Eleven such resolutions have been made by the UNSC in the past on Kashmir.
France in an extraordinary statement on Kashmir has said that “Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan”, and has asked India and Pakistan to resolve their differences through what France calls “political dialogue” and also refrain from any step likely to aggravate tensions, says a Times of India news source in Paris August 21.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s remarks came as his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi called him on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Kashmir after India revoked the special status for the Jammu and Kashmir.
Drian responded to Qureshi request and recalled France’s constant position on Kashmir that it is up to the two countries, under the framework of their bilateral political dialogue, to resolve this dispute so as to establish lasting peace, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Remarkably, this statement came a day ahead of PM Modi’s France visit to attend a G-7 meet in Biarritz, France wherein he is all set to be once again grilled by President Donald Trump by the end of this week. Modi is already in France.
The G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Reports from Canada claim that people took to Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square the other day to voice their support for the people of Kashmir, weeks after the Indian government downgraded the region’s autonomy and began a security crackdown, writes Albert Delitala for the Digital Broadcast Journalist Global News, Canada August 18.
Restrictions continued in much of Indian-administered Kashmir on Sunday, despite India’s government saying it was gradually restoring phone lines and easing a security lockdown that’s been in place for nearly two weeks, so write a staff of the Associated Press in Canada dated August 18. (The Globe News).
Indian soldiers, poor mercenary Nepal’s Gorkhalis, manned nearly deserted streets and limited the movement of the few pedestrians who came out of their homes in Srinagar, the region’s main city, say international media sources.
Other media sources claim that tens of thousands of Canadians packed Toronto’s iconic Nathan Philip Square to raise their voices in support of the oppressed people of Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK).
Organized by Friends of Kashmir Canada, people from all walks of life belonging to all faiths attended the protest demonstration.
They included Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and people of other faiths.
The protesters were carrying banners reading slogans like, “Modi is the New Hitler”, “Who said Hitler is Dead, Meet Modi, the PM of India”, “12 Million Kashmiris under Lockdown” and “Stop Genocide in Kashmir”, reported several Media agencies.
There were also a number of speakers from the Sikh community that came to express solidarity with the people of Kashmir, APP dated August 19, 2019, and some other media sources too have said.
PM Modi and Canadian PM will meet each other at the G-7 meet in France. Modi and Trudeau were not in good terms, it is talked in the international political circuit.
Modi’s aggression on Kashmir is not being liked by his own former bureaucrats, for example Shyam Saran, who tore apart Nepal while they were in the Chair.
Former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran says, “There has been a certain bankruptcy and lack of imagination in terms of dealing with Kashmir”.
Saran made these observations while talking to NDTV Dialogue dated August 22, 2019.
Similarly, some 5 UN Rapporteurs in the recent days have urged India to end communications shut down in Kashmir.
In the meanwhile, Pakistan on Tuesday said it will approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the Kashmir issue, weeks after India revoked the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
An overwhelming majority in the UN Security Council members stressed Kashmir was a bilateral matter between New Delhi and Islamabad.
“An in-principle decision has been taken to take the issue of Kashmir to the International Court of Justice,” foreign minister Qureshi told ARY News TV.
It appears that after the success of the UNSC meet August 16 on Kashmir in its favor, Pakistan is now determined to bring this issue to the attention of the International Court of Justice.
According to international law expert Taimur Malik, the matter can be referred to the ICJ but its opinion is only advisory in nature and not binding to the parties concerned. But it, adds the expert, could help Pakistan make the Kashmir issue ‘international’.
Similarly, the Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday expressed concern over the situation of Muslims in Kashmir, two weeks after the center ended the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and split the state into two union territories.
Khamenei said Iran expects the Indian government to “adopt a just policy towards the people of Kashmir.”
On the contrary, the United Arab Emirates, a Muslim country instead of suggesting India to take care of the minority Indian Muslims, is all set to “HONOR” PM Modi for his perhaps erratic behaviors of the Muslims more so of the Kashmiris.
Thanks the Saudis have yet to “decorate” PM Modi with their highest honor for having brilliantly tortured the Indian Muslims. Perhaps MBS is thinking on how to honor Modi.
Perhaps this must have provided a big jolt to the senior Muslim leaders who wished recently that there should be unity among the Muslim countries.
Writes Carin Jodha Fisher in her tweet that, (sic), “While Iran has been relatively concerned about Kashmir, and there has been a cautious silence from the Arab world. In fact, the Indian PM Modi is set to receive UAE’s highest civilian award “Order of Zayed” this weekend.
Perhaps she is pained to see the lukewarm response from the Muslim countries over the plight of the Kashmiri people in India.
The leaders wishing for such a Muslim unity were PM Mahathir and the Turkish President Erdogen who too have talked of Kashmir in a subdued voice.
Though these leaders were talking of Muslim Renaissance?
And this is what President Trump said just the other day that “It is an issue related with religion…of the Hindus and Muslims and so the Kashmir issue is a complicated one”.
U.S. President Donald Trump has freshly said that he would discuss with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the situation in Kashmir and help ease the Indo-Pak tensions when they meet at the G7 Summit in France this weekend.
Modi is in France now. Trump is soon to arrive Paris.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he was happy to try and help calm the situation in Kashmir amid fresh tensions between India and Pakistan after the former (read India) revoked the special status of Jammu & Kashmir August 5, 2019.
Nepal for example, did not issue the statement of the liking and desire of India and thus India is likely to impose yet another blockade on Nepal.
The BJP Card holder has just returned and may devise some schemes to take penal actions on Nepal. Inferiority complex ridden Minister that Shankar is.
India believes in taking punitive actions against Nepal, says International relations expert Dr. Anil Sigdel in one of his recent Tweets.
Sigdel perhaps wished that Jay Shankar would beg apologies for having imposed blockade on Nepal in the year 2015. Indian cruelty unlimited that was.
Sigdel has though comfortable relations at the very personal level with the Indian Ambassador based in Washington D C.
Mr. Shankar has reportedly told Nepal prior to his departure to Delhi to elaborate its stance on Kashmir as it was, as he claimed, a vague one.
But one has to laud Mr. Gyawali who made a to-the-point statement this time on Kashmir which must have thoroughly shaken the Indian establishment PM Modi plus together with his “Hindutva gang”.
In making a standard factual statement on Kashmir, Nepal has thus been able to reject late Dr. K.I. Singh’s faulty assertion that Kashmir was an “internal matter of India”.
Singh was Nepal’s Prime Minister for a few months in the mid-fifties. Dr. Singh was dismissed by King Mahendra for having made a wrong statement that was an India tilted one on Kashmir.
Whether India likes it or not, the ground reality is that Kashmir is an issue that has been “internationalized” by now.
The UNSC says that the previous resolutions too should be taken into account while taking up the issue at the “bilateral” level to which, as stated earlier, the Indian envoy too has admitted that India was ready to honor the Shimla agreement.
Shankar, let’s presume, must have instructed his Nepali “mercenaries” to act against PM Oli and create a political environment which averts and aborts the visit of President Xi Jinping in Nepal.
Shankar even may prefer Nepal being restored a Hindu State.
In a daring move, the Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Qureshi on August 18 has summarily challenged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold a referendum, if he could dare, in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) if PM Modi really wants to end the disputed territory’s autonomous status.
This was a direct challenge. But will PM Modi dare to do so?
Kashmiri people as of August 20, we have been told are just awaiting the government restrictions to be lifted so that they could come to the streets as usual to signal Delhi that they were not happy with the August 5 steps.
The Security Council met August 16 and the Chinese Ambassador as one of the UNSC member tentatively spoke on behalf of the entire Security Council member states and briefed the international media immediately upon the conclusion of the UNSC meet right inside the UN lobby.
Ambassador Zhang Jun stressed on the word “unilateral action”.
Ambassador Maliha Lodhi too spoke and said that her country lauds the efforts of the UNSC members’ states more so of China which backed the Pakistan’s move to the hilt. She took the UNSC Meet as the victory of the Kashmiri population.
In a fresh determination, the Pakistan PM has said that his country will no longer seek dialogue with India as it has repeatedly rebuffed peace overtures in the past.
Stepping up his criticism of India after it revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status early this month, Imran Khan told The New York Times that he fears the threat of a military escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors, reports the NDTV dated August 23, 2019.
He further said that “there is no point in talking to them (India). I mean, I have done all the talking. Unfortunately, now when I look back, all the overtures that I was making for peace and dialogue, I think they took it for appeasement,” he said.
Writes Eoin Higgins, a staff writer for the ‘Common Dreams’ online portal that “India’s behavior, according to PM Khan was evidence of “the link between the Nazi ideology and ethnic cleansing and genocide ideology of the RSS-BJP Founding Fathers.”
But for sure India is disturbing peace in the SA region. Who else knows better than Nepal as to what India means for Nepal? It is PM Modi who is the regional bully, the US President must understand. President Trump has to tame this erratic bully in South Asia.
People in Nepal love to hate him, read Modi, for several political reasons.
Bhutan must have been shivering after Modi’s fresh visit to Thimpu. Nepal is in queue.
While India claims that Russia voted in favor of the Indian action, however, the fact is that “the Jammu and Kashmir crisis should be resolved by India and Pakistan on a bilateral basis”, is what has been said by Russia’s Acting Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky.
“We are in favor of a bilateral track/talk between India and Pakistan,” the diplomat stressed, adding that Moscow was very much concerned about the potential escalation.
This explains as to where lay the Russian vote on Kashmir this time inside the UNSC.
In the meanwhile, some highly qualified and sensible Indian brains have jointly said that “We condemn government’s division of people and territories from above, subverting the very basis of our constitutional federalism”, so says a statement issued by A Mangai, Amitav Ghosh, Ashok Vajpeyi, Nayantara Sahgal, TM Krishna, Githa Hariharan among others.
They further write that “We, Indians who are writers, artists, media persons and cultural activists, condemn the undemocratic and unconstitutional moves of the government in Jammu & Kashmir.
For the Road: President Donald Trump in his Tweet August 19, says that “spoke to my two friends , Prime Minister Modi of India, Prime Minister Khan of Pakistan , regarding trade , Strategic partnerships and most importantly for India and Pakistan to work towards reducing tensions in Kashmir . A tough situation, but good conversations”.
The US President hopes of reducing tensions in Kashmir means that the US views Kashmir conflict as a disputed territory and thus urges both India and Pakistan to work that eases tensions in and around Kashmir valley. This by implication means that the US too takes the same stance as that which has been taken by China. This has some political meaning. Pakistan is a strategic partners of the US is what the President claims in his Tweet.
India and Pakistan should resolve the Kashmir issue bilaterally and no third party should “interfere or incite” violence in the region, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday August 23, 2019, after his marathon one-on-one talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
President Macron further said that “I told him that India and Pakistan will have to find a solution to the issue and no third party should interfere or incite violence in the region,” Macron said.
He said that peace should be maintained in the region and peoples’ rights should be protected.
Good news for the entire South Asian region from France. Hope others will follow the French stance. But the EU nations have so far observed silence.
However, the Brussels Time dated August 19 says that “the India-administered part of Kashmir is completely isolated from the outside world since the beginning of August after India revoked its autonomous status and shut down its internet and telephone lines”.
A news report dated August 22/2019 made available through media agencies claims that “the Kashmir Council-Europe organized a sit-in in Brussels, the European headquarters against the Indian brutalities in Kashmir and occupation of this disputed territory.
The protest sit-in, held at Place Schuman in front of EU External Action Service in Brussels, was attended by a huge gathering including the Europe-based Kashmiris, Pakistanis and their sympathizers.
The Chairman of Kashmir Council EU in Brussels, Ali Raza Syed appealed major powers of the world to put pressure on India to give right to self-determination to the people of Kashmir. That’s all.