The OIC Contact Group on Jammu & Kashmir, meeting at the Kazakhstan capital of Astana on the sidelines of the Council of Foreign Ministers in the last week of June, has reaffirmed support of the OIC to the Kashmiri people's struggle for their right to self-determination.

The meeting was chaired by the OIC Secretary General Dr. Ekmeleddin Ehsanoglu and was attended by the ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Niger, and the Secretary General's Special Representative on Jammu & Kashmir, Ambassador Abdullah Abdul Rehman Al-Alim. A delegation of the True Representative of the Kashmiri people led by senior APHC (All Parties Hurriyet Conference) leader from Indian Occupied Kashmir, Agha Syed Hassan AlMousvi, also attended the meeting and briefed the Contact Group about Indian brutalities and human rights violations in the Occupied Kashmir. He also informed the Group about the recent use of force by India on peaceful processions protesting against the killings and high-handedness of Indian security forces and the continued incarceration of the political leadership, especially of the APHC. Agha AlMousvi called for regular monitoring of the human rights situation in Occupied Kashmir by international organizations, especially the OIC.

The Representative also presented a memorandum to the Secretary General urging the OIC member states to reinforce their efforts for an early and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue.

The Turkish minister Mehmet Aydin expressed anguish on the sufferings of the Kashmiri people and reaffirmed Turkey's support to their right of self-determination. The Saudi deputy minister said the Saudi Kingdom always supported Kashmiri peoples struggle for their right to self-determination.

Kashmir is the other big issue, besides the Palestinian question, confronting the Muslim world. The two issues are quite identical. In both the cases two foreign powers have occupied Muslim majority areas by force and displaced the local people. Like the Palestinians, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri people have been displaced from their homeland by the Indian forces. They have been living as refugees in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world for the past over 60 years, while the millions of Kashmiris living in occupied Kashmir have been facing worst kind of suppression and denial of their rights by the Indian forces to keep them in subjugation.

The Kashmiris people have no other international organisation except the OIC to look up to for help in their struggle. The United Nations Security Council as far back as 1948, had upheld the right of the Kashmir people to decide their future through an internationally supervised plebiscite, but till today it has failed to implement its resolutions. The Indian strategy is to keep avoiding any meaningful effort to resolve the issue and in the meanwhile consolidate its hold over the area by hook or by crook. India has secured the support of the United States and other western powers to perpetuate its rule on Kashmir. It ignores the demand of the Kashmiris for self determination and suppresses all protests and agitations; those who dare take up arms against this suppression are declared terrorists, even though India itself is guilty of the worst form of state terrorism in occupied Jammu & Kashmir.

If it has to succeed in its mission then the OIC Contact Group should go for a pro-active role to support the struggle of the people of Kashmir.

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