Uncalled for furore on Kashmir misquote

As Pakistan's High Commissioner in a country where - if not majority - substantively large number of Pakistani origin Diaspora - nearly a million strong - hail from Azad Kashmir - I can understand their concerns and over blown reactions on any misconstrued utterance received by them through the foreign media regarding the core issue that has bedevilled peace and co-operation between India and Pakistan.

While not undermining their capacity to over react what pains me as a Pakistani who has remained a devout champion of the right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people in a journalistic career spread over a period of 45 years to see caution and wisdom being thrown to winds just for the asking. What grieves me more is the knee-jerk reaction of some of the senior Kashmiri leaders who jump to their guns without even trying to ascertain the veracity of an alleged and attributed utterance.

I can write volumes on PPP, its past, present government and leadership's commitment to the Kashmiri cause. I still remember the briefing that I had received from the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (Shaheed) when she sent me to represent Pakistan at the Court of St James. On top of her agenda assigned to me was to mobilise support for the Kashmiri struggle for freedom from foreign yoke. I followed her advise to the best of my ability with religious devotion and set myself on the task of achieving what my friend George Galloway - a leading Labourite than - had described as "snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat."

Pakistan High Commission as never before conducted such a hectic lobbying in 1994-96 with the unstinted support of the Kashmiri/Pakistani community and Labour members of Parliament - under the direct instructions from Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was herself hourly monitoring the activities on phone at the Camp Office set-up in Brighton. That enormous amount of lobbying culminated in what is known as 1995 Brighton Resolution adopted by the Labour Party Annual Conference, moved by Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and drafted by Sir Gerald Kaufman - upholding categorically the UN sanctioned right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir. The Labour Party had also acknowledged unequivocally that the solution of the Kashmir problem was its moral obligation since it was the legacy of the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 under a Labour government. This landmark development - first ever since the UN passed the plebiscite resolution - was bannered as "Pakistan's diplomatic victory" by even the Indian media.