There is an urgent need to resolve the decades-old Kashmir issue peacefully. “The sooner we do it the better it will be for both India and Pakistan,” Maulana Fazalur Rahman, visiting Pakistani leader and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, said here Sunday night. Speaking at a function in his honor held by the Kashmir Committee in Jeddah which was chaired by Zaigham Uddin Azam, Pakistani Consul General, Fazlur Rahman, said terrorist activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan have put the Kashmir issue back in focus. Terror attacks, he said, have precariously affected both India and Pakistan. If the Kashmir issue is resolved, both countries can jointly focus on ways to combat terror, he explained. Fazlur Rahman said that to resolve the Kashmir issue once and for all, he has taken into confidence leaders of both parts of Kashmir. “I have discussed the issue with Abdul Ghani Butt and Yasin Malik from occupied Kashmir. All the leaders have agreed to make sincere efforts to give the Kashmiri people the right of self-determination. They also agreed that a conference be called wherein all the neighboring countries – India, China, Iran and Afghanistan - would participate. In the Kingdom, Fazlur Rahman met Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Foreign Minister, and Ekmaluddin Ihsanoglo, OIC Secretary General.
