The foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have supported Pakistan's call for a joint probe to accurately establish the facts surrounding the accidental firing of a projectile into the country from India earlier this month.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said China and other countries have no locus standi to comment on Jammu and Kashmir and they should note that India refrains from public judgment of their internal issues, in what is seen as a strong reaction and message to Beijing.
Pak FM Qureshi informed Parliament that he requested the OIC to either rescind the invitation or postpone the session in view of the prevailing situation, neither of which was done.
The Islamabad Declaration was issued at the conclusion of the 48th session of the foreign minister of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation which was attended by the ministers and delegates from 57 Muslim states and international organisations.
In response to a question the official spokesperson said, "We note with regret that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference has once again chosen to comment on Jammu and Kashmir and India's internal affairs in the Resolutions adopted, during the 38th Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers held in Astana, Kazakhstan from June 28-30, 2011.
"We reaffirm that Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India and is a matter strictly internal to India," spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Raveesh Kumar said.
India on Thursday hit out at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation for inviting the chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference to attend its foreign ministerial meeting in Islamabad next week.
'How can any religion have anything to do with terrorism? How was Islam equated with terrorism? And once that happens, how does a man in the western country differentiate between a moderate Muslim and a radical Muslim'
The ministry of external affairs called the invitation a "welcome recognition" of the presence of 185 million Muslims in India and of their contribution to its pluralistic ethos, and of India's contribution to the Islamic world.
Wang began a two-day trip to Pakistan on Tuesday primarily to attend a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as a special guest.
A group of envoys including those from several Europe Union countries and a few Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) member states began a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday to take a first-hand account of the situation in newly-carved union territory, especially after the recently-concluded local body elections.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi discussed ways to further strengthen the "iron-clad friendship" between the two countries as the two sides signed five agreements to deepen their bilateral cooperation in various fields, the foreign office said on Tuesday.
'It will be foolhardy to overlook that this stunning shift in China's stance comes as the culmination of the severely damaged India-China relationship under the present government,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'The MEA, hopefully, made it clear that the Indian PM can't be seen in Xi Jinping's company when China has, for all intents and purposes, annexed over 1,000 sq kms of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh, and essentially that the Wuhan spirit and the Mamallapuram spirit have turned into vinegar.'
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in India Thursday evening in the highest-level visit between the two countries after the ties came under severe strain following the eastern Ladakh standoff nearly two years ago.
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Though Bajwa met Saudi Arabia's Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and Saudi Arabia's military chief of staff General Fayyad bin Hamid Al-Ruwaili, he failed to meet the crown prince.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after talks in Beijing between officials from the two rival Middle East powers, Iranian state media reported on Friday.
The best, wisest, and fairest next step in strengthening our own cause is to restore statehood to Jammu & Kashmir and allow the resumption of robust political activity. That's a box that remains unchecked on the Modi government's report card as we approach the fourth anniversary of Kashmir's Constitutional shift, notes Shekhar Gupta.
India has maintained there is no scope for a third party mediation.
India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The vote on a critical resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva has been postponed to Tuesday, as Colombo stepped up efforts to garner international support ahead of the voting which is being seen as an acid test for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
'The sooner Pakistan and India face these geopolitical realities, the better it will be for their own security and prosperity,' observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The battle to manage the international environment over Kashmir has just begun, but what is expected to help is the lifting of internal controls. All eyes are now on that exercise. Aditi Phadnis reports.
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Not only is there a possibility for a conventional retaliation by Pakistan, there could also be terror attacks.
'India, which climbed the escalation ladder first, has climbed down.'
'It remains unclear what Indian objectives have been realised in precipitating the crisis in the first instance last Tuesday,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'He could indeed survive [the no confidence vote] even as he faces his biggest political test.'
Imagine being a part of a country, but being discriminated against by the majority community and atrocities being committed against you by the state. This is the deplorable conditions that the Rohingyas of Myanmar live in where they are cut off from their livelihoods and sources of income, unable to access markets, hospitals and schools, and have little or no access to relief aid. In order to understand the situation and the genesis of the tragedy unfolding, Rediff.com's Archana Masih speaks to Ambassador Vijay Nambiar, the United Nations' Chef de Cabinet (Chief of Staff), who had served a long stint with the UN in New York on the issue.
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