Pakistan's options for managing the crisis in Kashmir

Al Jazeera Net - Islamabad

When Pakistan celebrated the success of Prime Minister Imran Khan's historic visit to the United States, where U.S. President Donald Trump offered to mediate the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan, India torpedoed Pakistan's pink dreams by declaring a decree abolishing the special status of Kashmir and submitting it to the government of New Delhi.

The sudden Indian announcement was a shock in Pakistan, described as the deadliest in 72 years, and a heightened state of alert prevailed on the country's diplomatic, political, military and parliamentary front.

Diplomatic mobility

Political analyst Abdul Karim Shah, director of the Islamabad Center for Studies, measures the shock, after the Pakistani Foreign Minister cut the pilgrimage with his family, to attend the emergency summit called by Pakistan at the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah to discuss the issue of Kashmir. Pakistan has requested an emergency session of the Security Council, and activated Pakistani diplomacy tours of Pakistani ambassadors to major countries to explain the dimensions of the issue of Kashmir to those capitals.

The Pakistani government held a joint session of parliament attended by all the deputies of the National Assembly and the Senate.

Shah reduces the likelihood of a military conflict, because the battle is now judicial and diplomatic, although the National Security Council, which includes the military and political leaders in the country held an emergency meeting, and the military leadership held another meeting for all leaders of the corps resulted in the decision to expel the Indian ambassador, and stop the joint trade and close Border between the two countries.

The Pakistani foreign minister will visit China in two days to discuss with Beijing the prospects of responding to the Indian move after China announced its categorical rejection.

Judicial battle

India is a federal state in which the states have regional governments and local parliaments subordinate to the central government in New Delhi, but the presidential decree excluded Kashmir from its special status as an internationally disputed area, making it directly subordinate to the capital, even without the approval of the local Kashmiri parliament, which is a prerequisite Under the Constitution.

So the international jurist Shoaib Khan believes that the battle is now primarily a judicial battle. The government may pass the resolution in the Indian parliament by a narrow majority.

He also points out that Pakistan intends to internationalize the case and transfer it to the International Court of Justice for its decision, "which is what India always tries to avoid, because it knows that the case would not be in its favor if the Kashmiri people were given the right of self-determination."

"This solution would be more feasible than resorting to international political bodies whose decisions would not be binding on India," said Khan. He argues that Trump's mediation, which has been an option for days, "has become an urgent necessity based on data on the ground."

The Indian decree had a thunderbolt on the people of Kashmir, where there was widespread public anger in Kashmir, India and Pakistan, and the Kashmiris took to the streets to reject the decision despite the curfew in Srinagar, sending military reinforcements to the district and arresting most Islamic symbols and leaders in Kashmir. Six people were killed and dozens injured.

In return, Pakistan responded by releasing Hafez Saeed, a popular leader among Kashmiris, who was arrested near Lahore two weeks ago on charges of financing terrorism.

"The Kashmiri youth are rising up with enthusiasm and revolution and trying to emulate the Arab Spring revolutions," said Hanan Abbasi, speaker of Pakistan's Youth Parliament. "What we see as the resilience and challenge of the Kashmiri youth, despite the severance of all means of communication, proves that if the issue passes in international forums, it will not pass on the people of Kashmir, who sacrificed for 72 years to get the right of self-determination and blew his dreams with a stroke of a pen."

"Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has insisted on fulfilling his election promises that satisfy the extremist tendency of the Hindu majority and support the orientations of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)," Abbasi said. "The nuclear issue is on the verge of a devastating war that is crushing the poor economies and peoples of both countries."

Most analysts in Pakistan agree that the battle will be ferocious on the diplomatic, judicial and grassroots level and are unlikely to step down militarily, unless India provokes a calculated military provocation. Pakistan's military spokesman has threatened that his country is ready to go as far as possible to defend the rights of the Kashmiri people. And his issues.