ISLAMABAD: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) special envoy for Jammu and Kashmir, Ambassador Yousef Aldobeay, on Sunday said the body would continue to support the ‘just struggle’ for self-determination by the Kashimiri people, Pakistani state-run media reported.
Kashmir has been divided between Pakistan and neighboring India since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought three wars over it.
Aldobeay, OIC’s Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Ambassador Tarig Bakhit, and other senior officials from the organization arrived in Pakistan on Sunday on a visit that will conclude on November 12.
In one of its first engagements, the OIC delegation met representatives of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), an alliance of parties that has led a political resistance against Indian rule since the early 90s.
“The special envoy reaffirmed OIC’s support to the just struggle of the Kashmiri people. He expressed complete solidarity with the valiant Kashmiri people,” Aldobeay was quoted as saying by APP.
Instituted at the 14th OIC Summit in Makkah in 2019, the special envoy on Jammu and Kashmir has played “an important leadership role in steering the organization’s principled position on this issue,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week, saying the latest visit will “reinforce the centrality of a just settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute to lasting peace in South Asia.” (Arab News PK)
