ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday nominated 22 parliamentarians as special envoys to highlight the Indian forces’ brutalities and human rights abuses in held Kashmir.
“I have decided to send these parliamentarians to fight the case of Kashmir in different parts of the world,” PM office’s statement quoted Nawaz as saying.
It also said that the special envoys will have strength of the Pakistani people, prayers from the Kashmiris across the Line of Control, mandate of the parliament and support from the government.
“I am standing behind these special envoys to ensure their work for highlighting the Kashmir issue across the world so that I can shake the collective conscience of the international community during my address at United Nations this September,” Nawaz said.
He said Pakistan would remind the United Nations of its long-held promise of ‘right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people’ and would make it clear to India that it was them that had approached the United Nations several decades back on Kashmir dispute but are not fulfilling its promise.
“Generation after generation of Kashmiris have seen only broken pledges and ruthless oppression,” the prime minister said and added, “The Kashmir issue is the most persistent failure of the United Nations but Pakistan will not cave in by any stretch of imagination.”
The nominated parliamentarians include Ijazul Haq and Malik Uzair for Belgium, Khusro Bakhtiar and Alamdad Laleka for China, Raza Hayat Hiraj, Junaid Anwar Chaudhry and Nawab Ali Wassan for the Russian Federation.
Nawaz also nominated Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Major (r) Tahir Iqbal and Muhammad Afzal Khokhar for Saudi Arabia, Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha and Malik Pervaiz for Turkey, Lieutenant General (r) Abdul Qayyum and Qaiser Sheikh for the United Kingdom.
Mushahid Hussain Syed and Shazra Mansab Ali Khan would highlight the issue in the United States and the United Nations, Ayesha Raza Farooq and Rana Muhammad Afzal in France, Awais Leghari in the United Nations (Geneva) and Abdul Rehman Kanju in South Africa.
