ISLAMABAD (AP) – Pakistan will allow people in the Pakistan-administered part of divided Kashmir to decide whether to join Pakistan or rather remain independent in a future referendum on the disputed Himalayan region, the prime minister said Friday .
Imran Khan spoke at a meeting in the city of Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir as the country marked the annual Day of Solidarity with Kashmir.
“God willing, Pakistan will give the right to the people of Kashmir to decide whether they want to remain independent or become part of Pakistan,” Khan said.
Khan expressed his willingness to speak to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, as he reverses the steps New Delhi has taken in 2019 by changing the special status of Kashmir, which is split between Pakistan and India and by both its entirety is claimed.
At the time, relations between Pakistan and India were strained from New Delhi’s attempt to divide the Indian-administered Muslim-majority Kashmir into two federally administered areas – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh – sparking anger on both sides of the border . .
Khan attacked India’s Hindu nationalist government for the action, calling India a state sponsor of hatred and prejudice against Islam. Since then, Pakistan has refused to talk to India, saying that Modi must first restore the original status of Indian-administered Kashmir.
Previously, Shibli Faraz, Pakistan’s information minister, told The Associated Press that Islamabad would resume talks with India if Modi’s government agrees to a Kashmir referendum in accordance with UN resolutions.
In southwestern Pakistan, at least 16 people were injured when an unknown attacker threw a hand grenade at people lining a road, minutes after a pro-Kashmir rally passed through the area, local police chief Wazir Ali Marri said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in Sibi County, Baluchistan Province. The troubled province has been the scene of a low-level uprising by separatists demanding a greater share of local natural gas and mineral resources.
Also in Baluchistan, a bomb went off at a government office in the city of Quetta, the provincial capital, later Friday, killing at least two people and injuring five, police said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which took place near the Deputy Commissioner’s office.
In Kashmir, Pakistan has long pushed for the right to self-determination under a 1948 UN resolution calling for a referendum on whether Kashmiris wanted to merge with Pakistan or India.
The future of Muslim-majority Kashmir remained unresolved at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was divided into predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since gaining independence from British rule in 1947. In 2019, a car bomb attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed 40 Indian soldiers and left nuclear-armed rivals on the brink of war.
India has an estimated 700,000 soldiers in its part of Kashmir, who have been fighting nearly a dozen rebel groups since 1989. In many areas, the region has the feel of an occupied country, with soldiers in full combat gear patrolling the streets and searching civilians. More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, died in the conflict.
Also Friday, the Pakistani army took foreign media on a tour of a border village in Pakistani-administered Kashmir to demonstrate damage from Indian fire. Residents in the area are accusing India of deliberately attacking civilians, a charge that India denies.
The two sides regularly hold fire in violation of the 2003 ceasefire over the Line of Control, which separates the two sectors of Kashmir. Civilians are often caught in the crossfire, killing dozens each year in the violence.
Most people who live along the border have lost relatives or relatives in recent decades.
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Associated Press authors Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, and Muhammad Yousaf from Bhimber, Pakistan contributed to this report.