India, Pakistan have a great opportunity to end Kashmir dispute

Kashmir Solidarity Day is observed each year on Feb. 5 to express our sincere support for the inalienable right to self-determination of the brave Muslim people of Jammu and Kashmir. I have been an ardent supporter of the Kashmir cause. But I also sincerely wish that the international community, especially India and Pakistan, could resolve this conflict in an amicable manner.
I had the honor of serving in Islamabad as the ambassador of Saudi Arabia for almost a decade, from 2001 to 2009. During this critical period, we tried our utmost to ensure stability and peace in Pakistan. Together, we fought the extremists and terrorists. I also remember the fateful days in 2005, when the devastating earthquake hit Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Saudi Arabia was the first nation to establish an air corridor to provide emergency relief to the victims of this great tragedy. The Kashmiris on the other side of the Line of Control were also suffering from the disastrous consequences of the earthquake, but we could not help them due to the continuing conflict.
President Pervez Musharraf later tried to resolve the Kashmir dispute bilaterally with India. On the basis of his four-point formula, my friend and former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri worked out a viable framework for Kashmiri settlement with his Indian counterparts. Unfortunately, this sincere effort failed because of the lack of positive response from India and the start of the political crisis in Pakistan. As an independent scholar, I still believe that a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue is possible, if there is political will on the part of the leaderships of both India and Pakistan.
On Kashmir, my views have been clear. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” These rights are not being observed in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. For more than three decades, this conflict has claimed thousands of Kashmiri lives, besides numerous instances of missing persons and the arbitrary application of punitive laws and other instruments of repression.
Since August 2019, India has raised the stakes in Kashmir by annexing and dividing the disputed region. Subsequent repression has aggravated the humanitarian crisis. In particular, the demographic and ethnic identity of the Kashmiri people is under attack, as the precious Kashmiri land is being sold off cheaply to corporate interests from the rest of India. The same pattern is visible in the settlement of non-Kashmiris. Of late, there is also a systematic attempt to redraw the political map of the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region in order to disenfranchise the majority Muslim population in the Kashmir Valley.

I still believe that a negotiated settlement is possible, if there is political will on the part of the leaderships of the two countries.

Dr. Ali Awadh Asseri

A second consequence of India’s annexation of the disputed territory is that Kashmir has once again emerged as a regional flashpoint, renewing tensions between the nuclear-armed India and Pakistan and pushing South Asia into yet another round of risky instability. I fear that, in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the strife-torn region may trigger a much older conflict between India and Pakistan.
Other regional indicators are also not conducive for peace and stability. The Iranian regime continues to nurture militancy across the Middle East, from Yemen to Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. If Afghanistan implodes in the wake of a worsening humanitarian crisis and India continues to pursue its repressive path in Kashmir, the progressive trend of economic integration in the Middle East and Central Asia could be reversed. This possibility does not augur well for the socioeconomic well-being of the people of this vast region.
It is, therefore, extremely important that the world community should take action soon. Kashmir must top the agenda of the international settlement of disputes. The Kashmiri demand for self-determination is not only morally right, but also legally justified under the UN Security Council resolutions that call for the holding of a plebiscite to determine whether the Kashmiri people want to join India or Pakistan.
So, first and foremost, it is the responsibility of the UNSC to implement its resolutions on Kashmir. Until then, any attempt to change the demographic reality of the disputed territory will be illegal. Secondly, although relations between India and Pakistan have deteriorated in recent years, it is still in the pragmatic interests of both nations to resolve the Kashmir dispute bilaterally under the Simla Agreement or within the Kashmir framework worked out during the Musharraf era.
In this respect, I am happy to note that Pakistan’s recently announced National Security Policy seeks peace with India, but without compromising Kashmir, which is identified as a vital security interest. I honestly believe that peace in Kashmir will be achieved when India, along with Pakistan, takes initiatives that contribute to the development and prosperity of South Asia. India must, therefore, take a step back and reverse its current attempts to change the political status of the disputed territory and play with its demographic reality.
Saudi Arabia wants India and Pakistan to live in peace by amicably resolving this old conflict for the sake of future progress. Millions of people from both nations work in Saudi Arabia and each year send remittances worth billions of dollars back home. With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia has a unique relationship at both state and public levels. Riyadh has also sought strategic partnership with New Delhi in recent years, as India’s economic rise is conducive to the Saudi strategy to diversify its global economic linkages as well as domestic revenue streams. The Kingdom has also invested heavily in the economies of the two countries. The visit of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to both national capitals in 2019 was a turning point in this regard.
Therefore, Saudi Arabia has a pragmatic interest in conflict resolution in South Asia. That is why Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, while visiting India last September, graciously extended the Saudi offer to mediate the Kashmir conflict, should both India and Pakistan agree to it. The UAE set this trend by reviving the ceasefire in Kashmir earlier last year. The two countries should not miss this great opportunity, as the Gulf nations can best play the role of peace broker, resolving the Indo-Pak conflict in a manner that allows the Kashmiri right to self-determination to be preserved for all times to come.

• Dr. Ali Awadh Asseri served as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2009 and received Pakistan’s highest civilian award, Hilal-e-Pakistan, for his services in promoting the Saudi-Pakistan relationship. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Beirut Arab University and authored the book “Combating Terrorism: Saudi Arabia’s Role in the War on Terror” (Oxford, 2009). He is a board member of Rasanah, the International Institute for Iranian Studies, in Riyadh.