Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari arrived separately in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s (AJK) capital Muzaffarabad on Sunday night to celebrate Eidul Azha and show solidarity with the Kashmiri people.
They offered Eid prayers alongside AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider in Muzaffarabad on Monday and will spend the festival in the region.
Later in a rally, Qureshi said he had come to Muzaffarabad to “congratulate” the Kashmiris because he had been “successful in securing the power of attorney” of China.
“They [Chinese government] have told me to tell Prime Minister Imran Khan that China will stand with him when he presents Kashmir’s case before the United Nations,” he told cheering supporters. Qureshi paid tribute to those soldiers who were martyred while defending the region and those who were protecting the Line of Control (LoC) even on the occasion of Eid. He also assured Kashmiri people of Pakistan’s support. He urged political parties to come together on the Kashmir issue, saying that Pakistan must have a united stance on the matter.
“We have our differences […] But there is no difference on the issue of Kashmir. If there was any difference, a joint resolution would not have been passed.”
The foreign minister said that India had always shirked away from solving the Kashmir dispute bilaterally. After 9/11, Qureshi said, India had “cleverly tried to portray Kahsmiris’ struggle for right to self-determination as terrorism”.Earlier, Bilawal had criticised the government for its response to Indian government’s decision to strip occupied Kashmir of its special status. In a conversation with reporters, he demanded the government to “show leadership”. He said that the PPP will play its role but at the moment, Kashmiris were “looking up at the government”.
Source: dawn.com
Monday, April 20, 2026
