ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has sent separate letters to Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly and President of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, expressing gratitude for their cooperation and extending support over important legislation in the joint session of parliament on August 6.

According to a press release on Tuesday, the foreign minister said that the opposition parties deserved appreciation along with the treasury benches for showing maturity during the joint session of parliament, called over Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Kashmir issue.

“I have already appreciated the positive attitude of the Opposition on the floor of the House,” he added.

For the sake of the national interests, Qureshi further said the ruling and opposition parties once again proved that they had unanimous stance. He said the parliament had unanimously rejected Indian government’s unilateral and illegal steps of August 5, 2019 over Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir through a resolution backed by all parties.

Qureshi said that they were willing to take the opposition on board on all the important national issues including Kashmir and would be always according high importance to their actionable suggestions.

In his letters to both leaders of PML-N and PPP, the foreign minister said that he would be waiting for their positive proposals for formulating future strategy over the Kashmir policy. For the last one year, the government had been actively raising the gross human rights violations in IIOJK at all global fora, he said, adding the United Nations Security Council had debated the Kashmir issue thrice during last one year.

The foreign minister said after a lapse of 55 years, the Kashmir issue was discussed by the UNSC.—AFP