During Pakistan visit, OIC envoy reaffirms support to 'Kashmiri struggle'

Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s special envoy for Jammu and Kashmir Ambassador Yousef Aldobeay and other senior officials meet Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood in Islamabad, Pakistan on November 8, 2021. (Photo courtesy: Radio Pakistan)

• OIC delegation will visit Azad Jammu and Kashmir to assess the on-ground situation
• Visit will reinforce centrality of just settlement of Kashmir dispute, Islamabad says

ISLAMABAD: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) special envoy for Jammu and Kashmir, Ambassador Yousef Aldobeay, on Monday expressed OIC’s support to the “legitimate Kashmiri struggle” for their inalienable right to self-determination, the Pakistani foreign office said. 
Kashmir has been divided between Pakistan and neighboring India since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought three wars over it. 
Ambassador Aldobeay, OIC’s Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Ambassador Tarig Bakhit and other senior officials from the organization arrived in Pakistan on Sunday on a visit that will conclude on November 12. 
The OIC special envoy and his delegation on Monday met with Pakistani Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood in Islamabad on Monday. 
“The Special Envoy expressed OIC’s abiding solidarity and support to the legitimate Kashmiri struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” the Pakistani foreign said in a statement. 
On the occasion, Foreign Secretary Mahmood underscored that the visit reaffirmed the OIC’s resolute support to the just struggle of the Kashmiri people. 
“As a collective voice of the Islamic Ummah, this steadfast and principled position was a source of strength to the people of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK),” he was quoted as saying in the statement. 
On Sunday, the OIC delegation met representatives of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), an alliance of parties that has led a political resistance against Indian rule since the early 90s, in one of its first engagements since arriving in Pakistan. 
Instituted at the 14th OIC Summit in Makkah in 2019, the special envoy on Jammu and Kashmir has played “an important leadership role in steering the organization’s principled position on this issue,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week. 
The latest visit will “reinforce the centrality of a just settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute to lasting peace in South Asia,” it added.