Pakistan has called for “intervention” from global powers in resolving key issues with India amid ongoing tensions, members of a high-level delegation presenting Islamabad’s stance said on Sunday after landing in London.
Pakistan had launched a broad-based engagement campaign in the United States to present its perspective on the recent conflict with India, and counter New Delhi’s growing lobbying presence there. As part of its global outreach, the team will also visit London and Brussels.
The delegation comprises former foreign ministers Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Hina Rabbani Khar and Khurram Dastgir; Senators Sherry Rehman, Musadik Malik, Faisal Subzwari and Bushra Anjum Butt; along with senior envoys Jalil Abbas Jilani and Tehmina Janjua.
“The resistance we faced is that the Americans think that since [US] President [Donald] Trump has mediated the ceasefire, there is no need for further intervention. This was exactly our mission: to make them understand that intervention is needed,” Dastgir told Geo News after arriving in the United Kingdom.
“The diplomatic delegation fulfilled its objectives,” he asserted.
The former MNA added: “Our ministers also put forward this stance that if India does not come to the table for talks again, then due to [the water issue] and India’s irresponsible behaviour — saying that it does not need evidence for a war — a war in the subcontinent is certain.”
Similarly, Subzwari told Geo News: “We want global powers to tell India that two neighbouring nuclear states cannot move forward in such a dangerous environment. It is not just damaging for the region but for the world’s peace.”
Noting that the delegation began its engagements with a multilateral forum, the United Nations, the senator stressed, “Despite showing our military prowess, we have come with an invitation to peace.”
Rehman, a former ambassador to the US, called the meetings “very positive”.
“They understood our points and the risks. They all also agreed that the weaponisation of water is extremely wrong,” she said, terming India-occupied Kashmir as the “largest open-air prison after Gaza”.
“Whatever the Indians do, good luck to them,” the PPP leader quipped, referring to the delegations sent by New Delhi to various countries on the matter.
Rehman highlighted: “India’s delegation does not know what its mission is, except for maligning Pakistan. [However,] we did not go [to US] to malign India, but to tell Pakistan’s story.”
Senator Butt termed the response in both New York and Washington to Pakistan’s concerns on held Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which India unilaterally held in abeyance after a deadly attack in occupied Kashmir, as “fantastic”.
“If the Indus Waters Treaty is overlooked today, then no treaty in the future will stand any ground,” she asserted.
Summarising the delegation’s stance, former caretaker FM Jilani stated: “Our message was that India committed aggression and that Pakistan is a peaceful country.”
He reiterated Islamabad’s desire for a peaceful resolution to the long-standing issues between the two nations.
Pakistan has appeared to be aiming to draw the US into a more proactive diplomatic role in South Asia.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called Trump a “man of peace”, while Bilawal said it was “reasonable to expect that an American role in arranging a comprehensive dialogue would also be beneficial for us”.
On June 4, the Bilawal-led delegation concluded its two-day visit to New York, where it met with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, along with elected and permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Another delegation, led by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Syed Tariq Fatemi, visited Moscow from June 2 to June 4. It met with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin.
On its part, India had also announced that seven all-party delegations would visit key partner countries, as well as meet members of the UNSC, to present the country’s stance on terrorism and “project India’s national consensus”.
Source: Dawn.
