Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit on Thursday while talking about Kashmir issue, expressed Islamabad’s desire to have good relations with India, The Times of India reported.
“Issue of Jammu and Kashmir must be resolved as per aspirations of Kashmiris,” Basit said while speaking on Pakistan Day event in New Delhi.
“As far as the Jammu and Kashmir issue is concerned, it should be resolved as per the aspirations of Kashmiris and hopefully it will be.”
“We hope that we will resolve the issue but as per the aspirations of Kashmiris (‘unki umangon ke mutabik ho’),” he said.
Kashmir has remained a long-standing unresolved issue between the countries causing acrimony on both sides.
Basit went to say that the aspirations of people can be “suppressed but not quelled” (‘tarikh gawah hay ki azadi ki tehrik huyin hain unko waqti taur pe dabaya ja sakta lekin…khatam nahin kiya ja sakta’)”.
“And, I hope the struggle of the Kashmiris will, god willing, prove successful (‘jo jaddo jehat Kashmiri kar rahen hayn, wo inshallah kamyab ho’),” he said, but did not elaborate.
When later asked as to what he meant by “aspirations”, Basit just said, “Whatever people of the Valley want, we should go by that.”
