NEW YORK: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir, which held a meeting in New York Thursday, reaffirmed its support to their “just” struggle for the exercise of their right to self-determination, while emphasizing that settlement of the Kashmir dispute under UN Security Council resolutions was “indispensable” for durable peace and stability in South Asia.

The meeting, in which Foreign ministers of Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan as well as a senior Niger diplomat took part, was presided over by OIC Secretary-General Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen.

At the outset, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi apprised members of the Contact Group about the grave situation in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K), saying that New Delhi’s prolonged siege of the disputed territory had exacerbated the already dire humanitarian conditions for the people.

A joint communique issued after the meeting underscored that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute that has been and continues to be on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) since 1948 and reaffirmed by the relevant UNSC resolutions granting the Kashmiri people their inalienable right to self-determination.

It calls for reversing all illegal and unilateral measures taken on or after 5 August 2019, stop the gross, systematic and widespread human rights abuses in the IIOJK, halt and reverse the illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, allow unrestricted access to UN Special procedures, international media and independent observers to visit IIOJK, and take concrete and meaningful steps for the full implementation of UNSC resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir.