Thu 22 August 2019:
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has ruled out seeking further dialogue with India over Kashmir, expressing his frustration with New Delhi over its decision to strip the region of its autonomy earlier this month.
“There is no point in talking to them. I mean, I have done all the talking,” he told the New York Times on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, now when I look back, all the overtures that I was making for peace and dialogue, I think they took it for appeasement. There is nothing more that we can do.”
Khan has taken a strong stand since India abrogated Article 370, which allowed Indian-administered Kashmir the jurisdiction to make its own laws in all matters except finance, defence, foreign affairs and communications.
He has accused the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of changing the demography of Kashmir through “ethnic cleansing”.
On Sunday, he said in a tweet that the country was hijacked by a “fascist, racist Hindu Supremacist ideology and leadership”.
“The most important thing is that eight million people’s lives are at risk. We are all worried that there is ethnic cleansing and genocide about to happen,” Khan told the Times.
On Thursday, the Pakistan PM intensified his criticism and tweeted that India was denying Kashmiris the “right to observe their religious practices” and urged the international community to “prevent an impending genocide of Kashmiris in Indian Occupied Kashmir”.
Today, on the 1st International Day for Victims of Violence based on Religion or Belief, we call attention to the plight of millions of Kashmiris living under brutal Indian Occupation, abuse & violence, deprived of all fundamental rights & freedoms.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 22, 2019
The Modi-led government imposed a crippling curfew in the region after revoking Kashmir’s special status. It sent thousands of additional troops to the disputed region, shut down telecommunications and internet and arrested prominent political leaders before making the move in New Delhi.
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