Pakistan's Changing Outlook on Kashmir

Hussain, Syed Rifaat

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Description

Title

Pakistan's Changing Outlook on Kashmir

Author(s)

Hussain, Syed Rifaat

Issue Date

2008

Keyword(s)

• Jammu and Kashmir -- Conflict
• Jammu and Kashmir -- Pakistan -- Policy

Abstract

Historically, Pakistan has viewed its dispute with India over Kashmir as the key determinant of its strategic behavior in the international arena. Advocacy of the rights of the Kashmiri people to freely determine their future has been the main plank of Islamabad’s diplomatic strategy in the United Nations and other international fora. By championing the cause of the rights of the Kashmiri people, Islamabad has tried to remind the world that India’s control over two-thirds of the State of Jammu and Kashmir is not only legally untenable but morally unjust, as it was achieved through an instrument of accession with a ruler who had lost the support of the vast majority of his predominantly Muslim subjects. Recently, however, Pakistan's stated position on Kashmir has undergone a fundamental shift under President General Pervez Musharraf who, after assuming power in October 1999 in a bloodless coup, has been, in his own words, “pondering outside the box” solutions to resolve the dispute. This paper examines various aspects of the changing Pakistani outlook on Kashmir and analyzes different factors underpinning this change.

Publisher

Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Series/Report Name or Number

Swords and Ploughshares, winter 2007-8

ISSN

1046-7734

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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