European lawmakers meet Pakistani foreign minister

KARACHI, Pakistan

A 10-member delegation of European parliamentarians discussed the deteriorating human rights situation in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in Islamabad on Tuesday.

The delegation including MEP Richard Corbett, leader of the Labour Party in Europe, MEP Irina Von Wiese, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and MP Nazia Rehman is on an 8-day visit to Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

While highlighting the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, the Pakistani foreign minister appreciated the efforts of the Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora and those involved in raising the issue of gross human rights violations in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOK) in Europe and beyond, said a statement from the foreign ministry.

Qureshi stated that the successive reports by the Office of the High Commissioner for human Rights (OHCHR), June 2018 and July 2019, the U.K. Parliament’s All Parties Parliamentary Kashmir Group (APPKG) report, as well as the hearing by European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights in Brussels lent credence to Pakistan’s stance on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and helped raise awareness in the international community about the horrendous human rights situation in IOK.

The minister stressed the need for consistent efforts to build upon the current momentum and sensitize the international community regarding the deplorable situation of human rights in IOK.

Qureshi lauded efforts of the European MEPs and other delegation members in highlighting the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in Europe.

He also reaffirmed Pakistan’s principled political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for the right to self-determination.