Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday said it will approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the Kashmir issue, weeks after India revoked the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
“An in-principle decision has been taken to take the issue of Kashmir to the International Court of Justice,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told ARY News TV.
Prime Minister Imran Khan told a rare joint sitting of Pakistan’s Parliament on August 6 that he will raise the Kashmir issue at every forum including the UN Security Council and also take the matter to the ICJ.
Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after India abrogated provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution to withdraw Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories, evoking strong reactions from Pakistan.
India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was an internal matter and also advised Pakistan to accept the reality.
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It will be a lost cause if Pak goes to ICJ, as it can never hope to win its case. However, it is a decent way to accept the reality and move on. ICJ will take years to pronounce its verdict and for India it gives a good opportunity to present its case. It would instead be a good idea for Pak to annex PoK and let India shout about it. This way, it will gobble up what it has rather than hoping for entire J&K. India will make some noises and let it pass. Otherwise, one way of looking at it is that PoK along with Gilgit Baltistan people are technically indian citizen and India can ask ICJ to pronounce on the legality of it. That will make China uncomfortable as well. Anyway, focus is no more on Hurriyat and internal dimensions of the issue.
In other words, by going to ICJ, Pakistan runs the risk of getting fried in its own oil.
Well, Pakistan has a self-created constituency to address to, when it comes to Kashmir affairs. And they ought to demonstrate that they are doing enough about it. By taking this case to ICJ, clearly Pakistan can take this monkey off their shoulders for some time, and could bury the case once for all should ICJ decide it in India’s favour, without having fire a single bullet. In these days of austerity, after all cost of every bullet bites! For India, there can’t be better outcome than having to slug it out at ICJ. Possibly, this could be the most peaceful way to put an end to this 70-year old soap opera as India could argue on the basis jurisdictional or sovereignty issues. In a sense Pakistan appears to have accepted the hard truth!
Perfectly stated.
What did these clowns achieve with the land, resources and population they got in 1947?! Your economy is sinking and you have to beg all the time. Still obsessed with Kashmir.