CHANGING DYNAMICS OF PAKISTAN’S KASHMIR POLICY
Keywords:
Kashmir, India, Pakistan, UN plebiscite, security, nationalism, settlement, legitimateAbstract
The India–Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is one of the most
intractable international conflicts in today’s world. The Kashmir
dispute dates back to 1947, when Britain granted independence to its
Indian colony. Pakistan insists that India has no legal or moral right
to Muslim majority Kashmir and rejects its attempts to gain
international acceptance of the territorial status quo. This paper lays
out the public and private position of the government in Islamabad on
Kashmir and relations with India. Kashmir has been an important
factor in Pakistan’s security policy vis-à-vis India and Pakistan has
always directed its efforts to find a settlement of this long standing
issue. Some Pakistani governments have used the Kashmir conflict to
reinforce Pakistani nationalism and others to strengthen panIslamism in addition to acquire domestic legitimacy or to ensure
regime survival. Pakistan governments would prefer the
implementation of UN Security Council resolutions that envisaged the
Kashmiri people determining in a plebiscite, under UN auspices,
whether to accede to Pakistan or India. However, conscious that a
plebiscite is unacceptable to India, Pakistan is also exploring, albeit
unofficially, other solutions that would best promote Pakistan’s
strategic and political interests in order to adjust it to post 9/11
security environment.
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Ibid 117 Ibid 118 Ibid
