Delivering a strong message to neighbouring Pakistan, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday reiterated the Narendra Modi government’s commitment to returning the Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK) to India.
During an address at Gargi College on Vishwa Bandhu Bharat, he said, “People just assumed that 370 (Article) can not be changed and this is something that we have to accept. Now once we change it, the entire ground situation changes.”
“All I can say with respect to PoK, there is a parliament resolution, and every political party in the country is committed to ensuring that the POK which is part of India returns to India…” he added. “But I do want to say one thing, I didn’t used to get people to ask us this 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. It is when we put 370 to rest, now people understand PoK is also important.”
#WATCH | Delivering an address at Gargi College on Vishwa Bandhu Bharat, EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, “…There is a parliament resolution, and every political party in the country is committed to ensuring that the POK which is part of India returns to India…” pic.twitter.com/5l1mTIDAuj— ANI (@ANI) May 8, 2024
‘PoK is very much a part of India’
These comments come days after Jaishankar on Sunday said that PoK “has never been out” of India and that people were “made to forget about it”. While responding to a question during an event in Cuttack in Odisha, he said, “PoK has never been out of this country. It is part of this country. There is a resolution of the Indian Parliament that PoK is very much a part of India.”
The minister said that India didn’t tell Pakistan to vacate the region during the “early years of independence”, due to which the “sorry state of affairs” continued. Last week, Jaishankar’s remarks were echoed in the comments made by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. In an exclusive interview with PTI, Rajnath said India will never give up its claim on PoK but it won’t have to capture it with force because its people, on their own, would want to be part of India after seeing the development in Kashmir.
“I think India will not have to do anything. The way the ground situation has changed in Jammu and Kashmir, the way the region is witnessing economic progress and the way peace has returned there, I think demands will emerge from people of PoK that they should merge with India,” he said on Sunday.
“We will not have to use force to take PoK as people would say that we must be merged with India. Such demands are now coming,” he had said. The defence minister asserted that “PoK was, is, and will remain ours”.
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