British MPs for putting Kashmir at top of Foreign Office agenda
By ANIThursday, February 24, 2011
MUZAFFARABAD - The British parliament’s Kashmir Committee Secretary General Richard Irwin Harrington has vowed to put the Kashmir issue at the top of the agenda list of the British Foreign Office.
Addressing receptions held for the visiting British parliamentarians by PoK Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan and other political parties in Muzaffarabad and Mirpur, Harrington assured them of full support in their struggle.
“I assure you that we will use our offices to put Kashmir at the top of the list of British Foreign office agenda,” The Express Tribune quoted the Secretary General, as saying.
The British parliamentarians called for a comprehensive dialogue between Pakistan and India over the dispute. English politician Andrew James Griffiths said that a solution of the Kashmir dispute would not only be beneficial for India and Pakistan, but also for the whole world.
“We want that Kashmiris have say in the negotiations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir,” he added.
Simon Christopher Dancuk of the Labour Party said: “I have thousands of British Kashmiri voters in my constituency and I had promised to them that I will visit Kashmir to educate myself on Kashmir dispute, and today I am in Kashmir and I have fulfilled the promise.”
PoK Prime Minister Khan suggested that the Line of Control should be reduced into a line of commerce that would help resolve the conflict. “It is a healing panacea,” he said.
“So let us have an open trade, intra-Kashmir trade,” he added, and also proposed the formation of British parliamentarians’ South Asian relations caucus. (ANI)
