ISTANBUL
An official from the Pakistan-controlled Azad Kashmir has called for full implementation of UN resolutions to end the long-running Indo-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir.
"If UN decisions are implemented, the Kashmir conflict can be solved. Otherwise, people will use weapons to fight for their rights," Javed Iqbal Budhanvi, food minister of the Autonomous Republic of Azad Kashmir, told the Anadolu Agency.
Budhanvi said the people of Kashmir were left with no options other than taking up arms to defend their rights.
"They call us terrorists but if we lay down our arms, we will be repressed and nobody will give us our rights."
Budhanvi said his rugged republic was not self-sufficient in agriculture and that Kashmir's fertile lands were under India's control, adding that Azad Kashmir needed Pakistan's help to overcome food problems.
Budhanvi also criticized what he described as "inadequate international support."
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region and continues since the independence Pakistan from India in 1947.
