Nigeria will be permanent member of UNSC, says Pakistani envoy

By: IFEANYI OKOYE

 

The High Commissioner of Pakistan to Nigeria, Umer Farooq, has said that Nigeria will one day become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Farook told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at a programme to mark the Kashmir Solidarity Day in Abuja that Pakistan was grateful to Nigeria for its position on Kashmir.
The envoy explained that Nigeria had always supported UN resolutions, adding that the solution to the Kashmir dispute lay in granting the people their right of self-determination.
“We are very grateful to the Nigerian people and the Nigerian government. At every forum, Nigeria has supported the cause of Kashmir.

“I honestly believe that Nigeria has all the rights and potential to lead the African continent to the Security Council.
“Right now, Nigeria is a non-permanent member but time will tell and Nigeria will be there one day.
“We would like Nigeria to stand for the same values it has taken, for which Nigeria deserved and got its own independence and they will mean the same for the Kashmiris.”
Farooq said that Nigeria and Nigerians knew the pains of the people of Kashmir as they had also been “enslaved physically, economically, politically and culturally” before being granted independence.
“They know what human rights are. They know what freedom is.
“The world must learn from the people of Nigeria, who endured not only the psychological, the economic and physical slavery but also subjugation for decades.
“Now compared with the Kashmiris, what the Kashmiris want is one thing: What is already being legitimised, accepted and recognised by the UN through a proper resolution.”
He alleged that the Kashmir issue was created because the basic principle of partition of India by the British colonial masters in 1947 was not followed by India.
The envoy said the solution to the Kashmir disputes lay in accepting the principle of partition and that allowed the Kashmiris to choose which side they wanted to belong.
He noted that both India and Pakistan had nuclear capabilities and military capacity, adding that they had gone to war but had not “crossed the threshold”.
“That means both nations have exercised restraint as well as the deterrence of enablement that have prevented a lot of war and nuclear flash points,” he said.
Farooq said that Pakistan wanted a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute in line with the UN Security Council Resolutions and that of the UN Committee on Human Rights.
He said the population of Kashmir was about 15 million people with the majority living in Kashmir, India while the displaced population was mostly living in Pakistan. (NAN)