KUALA LUMPUR: February 13: Malaysia will continue to support the struggle of Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination, and the efforts of Pakistan for a political and diplomatic solution to the long outstanding Kashmir issue.

This assurance has been given by the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah during separate meetings with Azad Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan here. During the meetings, the Azad Kashmir president briefed both the Malaysian leaders besides other issues, on the latest situation of occupied Kashmir.

Azizah said that her country was prepared to expand cooperation with Pakistan and Azad Kashmir in various sectors including culture, education and health so that close brotherly relations between the people of the two countries further strengthen and stabilize. “Both the countries can establish Islamic education centers to counter Islamophobia.

The Malaysian foreign minister while declaring the people of Jammu and Kashmir his brethren, asserted that his country was interested in initiating cultural and socio-economic activities in Azad Kashmir.

On this occasion, Sardar Masood Khan appreciated the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad for adopting in his address to the UN General Assembly a categorical stand against the Indian actions in occupied Kashmir. He maintained that by declaring August 5 actions as an agression on the state, the Malaysian prime minister had won the hearts of the Kashmiri people.

While declaring Mahathir Mohammad as a strong voice of the Muslim world, the AJK president said that the Kashmiri people held him in high esteem.

He said that the Indian government had planned to expel the Kashmiri people from their own homeland, and to rehabilitate the Indian Hindus there so as to change demography of the held territory. “All these actions of the Indian government were not only unlawful but also a naked violation of international laws,” he said adding that the Indian government must be held accountable for it.

Sardar Masood Khan while describing the Indian repressive actions as the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri people, appealed to the international community to come forward and save the Kashmri people from the Indian imperialism, and play its role in granting right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people.

He said that BJP’s Hindutva policy had posed a serious danger to the Muslims and other minorities of the region, and that the Indian rulers through their threats of occupying Azad Kashmir and using nuclear weapons against Pakistan, were toeing the policy of igniting war in the region, and added that if the war broke out, it would have highly disastrous impacts on the global peace.

The AJK President recorded remarks of his visit in the visitor’s book. President Masood Khan also presented traditional Kashmiri handicraft to the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister.