London, October 18, 2019 (PPI-OT): Member of UK Parliament and Shadow Minister for Digital, Liam Byrne, has urged the British government to take note of the atrocities being perpetrated by India against the people of occupied Kashmir. Liam Byrne, taking part in a debate in the UK parliament, said that recently the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan had said that Simla agreement was dead and the Kashmir dispute was no longer a bilateral issue.
He said Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s unilateral action to repeal Kashmir’s special status had showed that it was now something that required a multilateral solution. Narendra Modi’s decision to abrogate Article 370 has set the stage for what is an incredibly dangerous slide to violence, he added.
The MP said, “So madam I think that we should step up and do far more to raise our voice to try and bring a resolution to what is going on right now. Some people say that this is some kind of conflict between two nuclear powers if only it was as simple as that! This isn’t a conflict between two nuclear powers this is a conflict between three nuclear powers.
China today is the world’s biggest consumer of Gulf oil. It is building an oil pipeline from China through Pakistan so that it soon can access oil through that overland route the idea that China is going to permit someone to put its thumb on what is a new jugular vein I think is pretty fanciful analysis. So I’d like to know from the minister when he comes to wind up why is the British government insisting that this remains a bilateral conflict?”
Liam Byrne said that the Indian prime minister had set the stage in a way where there was risk now multiplied by the decision to deploy thousands more troops to what was already one of the most militarized areas on earth. He said that danger in turn had been multiplied yet again by the decision to suspend all communications and put the people under curfew in what surely must be one of the largest open prisons on the planet.
He said, we‘ve heard nothing from the British government about how they plan to remedy this but crucially what ministers have accepted is that human rights are always a multilateral issue and so what we must hear from a government which has set out before this parliament a clear determination to put itself at the forefront of solving in its own words the most complex international security difficulties.
“We now need a plan from them to stand up for the interests of British citizens. I am not the only one on these benches, I am not the only one in this house who has got cases coming to them from people with friends and families in the area and they’ve no idea what’s going on with them because there has been a communications blackout but critically what we now need from this government is clear and urgent action in the United Nations to ensure that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is given free and unfettered access to the area on both the Pakistan side and on the Indian side too. I want to know from the minister what he has done to pursue this agenda in the UN,” he added.
The MP said, “Surely the time has come if we are to put ourselves at the forefront of solving international difficulties that we push for a multilateral solution to this decades-long injustice.
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