Bilawal Bhutto thanks China, KSA, Turkiye for staying away from G20 meeting in Srinagar

Liaquat Ali

Islamabad: Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday thanked the countries who stayed away from participation in the G20 tourism meeting in Srinagar.

“I salute to China, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and other countries who rejected the Indian invitation to participate in the G20 tourism meeting in the Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir territory,” he said while addressing a public gathering in Bagh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

He said the countries that were participating in the conference had also downgraded their participation which reflected that there was nothing normal in the conference.

Bilawal said how tourism could be promoted in an area where half of the local population was in jail and over 900,000 armed personals were deployed to curb the voices of local people demanding their right to self determination.

He said that Modi government was actually a big supporter of terrorist organizations in India which were involved in the terrorism activities against the Indian minorities including Muslims and Christians.

“When we speak for the human rights of the Kashmirs, they (Indian government) say we are representing terrorists”, he said adding “how they could call us terrorists when we also had been the victims of the terrorism”.

“We want peace and represent the people affected by the terrorism”, he added.

Referring to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said when he called a butcher, a butcher or a murderer, a murderer, they started crying.

He questioned either the real terrorists were those who had placed the head money for the foreign minister of a country or those who themselves were the victims of terrorism.

The foreign minister said when he met with the foreign dignitaries, he always raised voice for the cause of Kashmiris.

He said when he was a foreign minister, he was not representing any political party but every Pakistani citizen.

“When there is Kashmir cause, we always stand united on the issue by setting aside all political differences,” he said.

Kashmir issue was not the issue of Pakistan and India, but it was issue of the people of Kashmir and it had become an international problem which could not be resolved until the Kashmiris were not allowed their right to self determination.

He hoped that struggle of Kashmiris would bear the fruits and days were not far away when the Kashmiris would get the freedom by exercising their right to self determination.