India-Pakistan: Pakistani occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir state is illegal and needs to be resolved, Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony said on 13 August, according to Indian media. The entire state is an integral part of India, Antony said, adding that India remains committed to resolving all outstanding issues with Pakistan in accordance with the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.
Comment: Antony - arguably the most able minister in the cabinet -- seldom speaks in public about highly-charged foreign policy issues, especially the legal status of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, which the Pakistanis call Azad (Free) Kashmir. Azad Kashmir is a narrow strip of territory, adjacent to Pakistan which belonged to the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu that acceded to India in 1947. It was occupied by Pakistani troops at the time of partition and the UN ceasefire that created the Line of Control.
A recent surge in Islamic militant attacks in Indian Kashmir, with Pakistani intelligence and army artillery support, seems to have contributed to Antony's decision to speak out. Indian officials very seldom assert India's claim of ownership of western Kashmir against Pakistan.
Pakistan has created an artificial entity in Azad Kashmir, which maintains the fiction of running an independent state, but which in fact is completely controlled by authorities in Islamabad, and defended by the Pakistan Army and Pakistani intelligence.
Readers should know that Pakistan has no interest in supporting an independent Islamic state in Indian Kashmir because it would be uncontrollable by the Pakistanis. Nor does Pakistan want to annex the restive Kashmiris, who look more to India by tradition and history than to Pakistan. An independent Muslim state of Kashmir would almost inexorably become a new source of regional instability as it sought to define itself.
Pakistan's main interest in Kashmir is that the dispute justifies a 500,000-man Pakistan Army and other forces that Pakistan really cannot afford. All other issues in dispute with India have been resolved through talks. In short, the Pakistan Army has no other reason to be so large or influential in Pakistani government decisions. The irony is that in a conventional war the Pakistan Army is no match for the Indian Army.
As for India, the Indian constitution identifies Jammu and Kashmir State as an integral part of the state of India. That means that Indian leaders have no authority to compromise Indian sovereignty of that state, including the Pakistani occupied part, known as Azad Kashmir. And they will never do so.
India :
